This happens so often. Hollywood churn out these so called masterpieces and it gets viewers excited about another 'wow' of a film. That being said, Hollywood has also failed at given us a masterpiece, and viewers have been failed by the major critics also.

Positively, the scenic shots in the film are very good. It sets the tones well, and creates the moods needed. Acting is fine throughout, At first it is easy to blame the actors for some of the negatives that I will mention shortly, but having thought long and hard about it, I feel that the actors done the best they did.

And that's it.

Negatives come thick and fast in this feature. It starts with the disconnecting storyline, leaving the viewing more stranded and confused than the acting lead. I have no issues with a touch of confusion or the slight misleading of direction if it is part of the style of the film. Sadly, 12 Years a Slave leaves you trying to work things out at various scenes when trying to absorb the story. Very distracting. Some of the scenes go into the graphic torture of the lead but in other areas it leaves your mind to do the math but sadly this never works because the story does not connect the dots.

The story itself is very drawn out, making it feel like a 5 hour feature, and it could have been told in half-an-hour. This was possibly due to the overshot scenes of nothing. Scenes where the lead just breathes for about a minute of screen time. Scenes from the plantation, of workers in the heat, but the camera remaining there for ages. These scenes had no benefit to the film other than to be fancy. I don't mind the artsy stuff, but when it prolongs the agony, it stands out very clearly. This is a big failing of Hollywood and the big critics, they like the artsy stuff, but then seem to forget about the story. This is usually followed up with a string of Oscars... and the story repeats again and again.

There is also no concept of time/year, maybe that's a good thing as this is possibly how the lead actor feels so this could go either way.

I don't really think it succeeds in capturing a huge a slice of the history during the times either. It does bend a little political and fair to certain extents, but fails to touch other things that happened at the time. So what we have is a focus point but not the bigger picture. I have read many historical details during these dark times but they are not really elaborated here. What you simply have is a man that is mistreated, horrifically, and emotionally crushed in a country that does not listen to him. The film is focused on the horror and the artistry that it forgets about character and story development. So you come away learning absolutely nothing more than we already know. It also feels that lots of footage is missing. I just get that feel that this is why the story fails to flow.

I think what we have here is a style over substance film. These are the films to watch as they tend to get so much credit but will leave you wondering what all the fuss was about. A lot of people will follow like sheep and believe that the top critics are telling them the truth, just like newspapers tell us who to vote.

An artsy film with no substance mixed with a known horror story from history, add some great scenery with a broken story and a touch of fine acting - and you have a picturesque film with a pointless drag of a story.

GIFT-A-SCALE: 4 out of 14