Free State of Jones (2016) * *

Directed by:  Gary Ross

Starring:  Matthew McConaughey, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Keri Russell, Mahershala Ali, Sean Bridgers, Bill Tangradi

Free State of Jones has potential to be a powerful story.     The trouble is: It stops and starts, then sputters again.      There is no true emotional arc to which the film can rise.     It wastes a strong lead performance by Matthew McConaughey and a good supporting cast.     I just wish the acting was in service of a better film.     The trailers make it seem like a Civil War-era Braveheart, with McConaughey leading a rebellion against the tyrannical Confederacy, but all of the rousing scenes are in the ads.     The rest begins to feel as long as the Civil War itself.

Based on actual events, McConaughey is all business as Newton Knight, a Confederate medic who deserts the army after his nephew (I think, or is it cousin?) is killed in battle.     He leaves to bury his kin in his poor Mississippi hometown, made up primarily of poor farmers.     This doesn't stop the Confederacy from swiping nearly all of the food and belongings for the war effort.     This, along with a new law protecting sons of rich plantation owners from serving, angers Knight enough for him to turn outlaw and hide in the impenetrable swamp along with a few runaway slaves led by Moses Washington (Ali).

So far, so good, but then the film itself feels like it is stuck in the swamp also.     A lot of screen time is devoted to Knight's time in the swamp, where he bonds with the runaway slaves and forms a ragtag army to prevent Confederate authorities from usurping residents' property.     These scenes drag.    They drag to the point in which over an hour has gone by and we are nowhere closer to the promised Free State of Jones.

Knight's army grows with the onslaught of Confederate desertions.     His army grows in size and stature.     He wins enough battles against the Confederates to essentially control three Mississippi counties in the name of the Union.     There are some battles and some speeches by Knight that don't quite hit the power of William Wallace's, and then suddenly the war is over.     Knight and the now-freed slaves (on paper anyway) now must adjust to life during Reconstruction.      Mississippi makes life hard for the former slaves, figuring out ways around those pesky 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.     Knight takes up the fight against those in power, most of which are former Confederates returned to positions of authority simply by swearing an oath of loyalty to the newly reformed Union.

Free State of Jones meanders between Knight's life as a crusader and his home life, which is a wreck.    Knight is married to Serena (Russell), who leaves him for higher ground during the war.    Knight takes up with Rachel (Mbatha-Raw), a slave who was once able to save his son from death.    The Rachel-Newton union is at the heart of an inexplicable subplot which takes place years after Knight's death.     His descendant (I assume his grandson) marries a white woman, but the marriage is fought in court because the grandson may be l/8 black, which is enough by law to prohibit the marriage.     The trial scenes feel like they belong in a different movie.     Serena (who returns after the war), Rachel, Newton, and their children live together in harmony.     Newton is very much a "live and let live" kind of guy.    Actually, all of the adults in that household are.     Any obvious potential conflicts are not dealt with, even though there had to be some.

Free State of Jones doesn't lead anywhere of significance.   There are moments of power which are islands onto themselves, but they don't rise to a sustained emotional high.    It is admirable that Knight led a crusade against the Confederacy, but nothing was really won.     The war was over soon enough and Knight is a poor farmer again, forced to take the same crap he fought against.      The freed slaves are soon forced to return to their former masters in "apprenticeship" programs, which was unofficial slavery.      The black right to vote is allowed on paper only, with many former slaves kept away from the polls by intimidation

Free State of Jones has an annoying habit of resolving plot conflicts with passages of written narration on the screen.     The apprenticeship angle was disallowed by the government and federal troops were sent to enforce the new amendments.     After they left, the KKK grew in stature, and so on and so forth.     It's as if the movie is officially announcing the end of a subplot before moving on to the next one.     Thankfully, the movie eventually runs out of subplots.   Maybe there is a reason Newton Knight and his rebellion remained an unheralded historical footnote until now.     Maybe there is a good story to be told from all of this, but Free State of Jones is not the movie to tell it.