A well made movie, no doubt. But I didn't learn anything new about slavery, owners, or slaves,or even the era. There is a huge body of work out there that documents this history, and I really wish I had been moved by this particular story, but at the end, I was underwhelmed. Yes, it's shocking about kidnapping and denial of status (I still wonder about economics of kidnapping of free men), but then let's compare to all the shanghai'ing/press-ganging of sailors (slavery just the same but not confined to skin color or ethnicity) Having rights negated is extremely disturbing no matter what, and this is probably the only level that the film reached me.

Performances were very good. But overall, I felt the movie was over- hyped and did little-to-nothing to contribute to commentary on the era.