A disappointingly flawed take on a British hero

Well before the issue of slavery brought the United States to the Civil War in the 1860s, a man named William Wilberforce was fighting to end it in Great Britain. Wilberforce was born into a wealthy British trading family in the mid 1700s, went to Cambridge University, became buddies with William Pitt the Younger (England's youngest ever prime minister), and then got elected to Parliament when he was 23. You know, the usual.

But then Wilberforce became an Evangelical Christian and found himself divided over whether or not he ought to give up his Parliament seat to devote his life to religious contemplation and humanitarian causes. Lucky for the world, his friend and mentor John Newton (a former slave trader turned pastor after a religious conversion one rough night at sea) persuaded Wilberforce that he could use his political prowess to further the humanitarian causes that called him.

Amazing Grace, by director Michael Apted (Gorillas in the Mist, Coal Miner's Daughter) tells the story of Wilberforce's fight to abolish the slave trade in 18th and 19th century England, an unpopular cause that consumed him almost to his dying day. It stars Fantastic Four's Ioan Gruffudd (pronounced Yo-an Griffith--he's Welsh) as Wilberforce, Albert Finney (A Good Year, Big Fish) as John Newton, relative newcomer Benedict Cumberbatch (Starter for Ten) as William Pitt, and Romola Garai (Rory O'Shea Was Here, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights) as Wilberforce's wife Barbara. The supporting cast is also full of other talented actors, such as Rufus Sewell (The Holiday, The Illusionist), Michael Gambon (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, The Good Shepherd), and Toby Jones (Infamous, The Painted Veil) playing various characters on either side of the abolition argument.

In case the laundry list of actors with parts big enough to merit a mention doesn't tip you off, this movie has a lot going on. As producer Patricia Heaton (Everybody Loves Raymond) said, it's got enough in it to merit a mini-series. And if you ask me, that is exactly what Amazing Grace ought to have been.

Not only does Amazing Grace span a good 20+ years of Wilberforce's life, it seeks to give virtually every last second of it it's due, too. Meeting his wife, his battles with colitis and an ensuing addiction to the laudanum (aka opium) prescribed to treat it, his religious stirrings, his somewhat eccentric love of animals (he founded the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), and the several attempts he mounted to abolish the slave trade--we see them all. We also get involved with other subplots about William Pitt, the Amazing Grace song, various figures in the abolition movement (Thomas Clarkson, Oloudagh Equiano), and so on. Oh, did I mention there are lots of flashbacks? So many that half the time I had no idea what decade we were watching.

I'm not sure what was a bigger problem for me, though--that the story jumped around so much, or that the tone did, too. At times when Wilberforce was in abolition mode it seemed like a proper BBC Jane Austen drama. But at others, like when he was essentially set up on a blind date with Barbara (there were blind dates in the 18th century?), I swore up and down I was in for a romantic comedy.

I will say that the acting on all the actors' accounts was good. And there are definitely powerful moments, like when the Duke of Clarence (Toby Jones) bets his slave as part of a hand of cards at his gentlemen's club. But the talent, strong scenes, and witty lines are squandered on such an overloaded story. During a time when the sea merchant slave traders were as powerful a cartel in the British Empire as the tobacco industry is in modern America, it's a pretty big deal to see how someone took that on. It's a shame Amazing Grace took put that opportunity to waste.

ReelzChannel Rating: