Ride with the Devil (1999/I)

User Rating:

6.6/10   

Director:

Ang Lee

Writers (WGA):

Daniel Woodrell (novel)
James Schamus (screenplay)

Release Date:

5 November 1999 (UK)

Genre:

Drama | Romance | War | Western

Plot:

Jake Roedel and Jack Bull Chiles are friends in Missouri when the Civil War starts. Women and Blacks have few rights...

Plot Keywords:

Farm | Union | Missouri | Civil War | Widow

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Tobey Maguire	...	Jake Roedel
Jeremy W. Auman	...	Guard
Scott Sener	...	Guard (as Scott C. Sener)
Skeet Ulrich	...	Jack Bull Chiles
Glenn Q. Pierce	...	Minister
Kathleen Warfel	...	Mrs. Chiles
David Darlow	...	Asa Chiles
Zan McLeod	...	Wedding Musician - Guitar
John Whelan	...	Wedding Musician - Accordion
Roger Landes	...	Wedding Musician - Mandolin
Jeffrey Dover	...	Wedding Musician - Drums
Tyler Johnson	...	Wedding Musician - Drums
Kelly Werts	...	Wedding Musician - Fiddle
Michael W. Nash	...	Horton Lee, Sr.
John Judd	...	Otto Roedel

Also Known As:

Civil War (USA) (working title)
To Live On (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated R for graphic war violence.

Runtime:

138 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Certification:

Australia:MA | Iceland:14 | Iceland:16 | South Korea:15 | Germany:12 (f) | USA:TV-MA (cable rating) | Argentina:13 | Chile:14 | Denmark:15 | Finland:K-14 | France:U | Hong Kong:IIB | Norway:15 | Singapore:PG | Spain:13 | UK:15 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Doniphan, Kansas, USA

Company:

Good Machine

Trivia:

The scenes of the Quantrill's Raid on Lawrence, Kansas were filmed in Pattonsburg, Missouri. Pattonsburg was flooded out during the great flood of 1993 and the town was relocated leaving many empty buildings and homes available.

Goofs:

Continuity: When Jake is preparing to go to bed after his marriage and is talking with Daniel Holt he removes his left boot three times.

Quotes:

Jake: I say what is the good side to this amputation and there is one.
Jack Bull Chiles: Name it, Jake.
Jake: Well, you say one day some Federals catch up to me in a thicket. They would riddle me and hang me and no Southern man would find me for weeks or months and when they did I'd be bad meat pretty well rotted to a glob.
Jack Bull Chiles: That's scientifically accurate, I'm afraid. I've seen it.
Jake: I'd be a mysterious gob of rot. And people would say, "Who was that?" Then surely someone would look up and say, "Why it's nubbin fingered Jake Roedel." Then you could go and tell my father that I was clearly murdered and he wouldn't be tortured by uncertain wonders.
[...]

Movie Connections:

Featured in The 100 Greatest War Films (2005) (TV)

Powerful, accurate and genuinely moving

Taiwanese director Ang Lee, whose previous films include 'Sense and Sensibility' and 'The Ice Storm', turned to the American Civil War for his latest feature. Based on a novel by Daniel Woodrell, it follows the exploits of a group of Southern guerrillas, known as bushwhackers, as they fight their Northern equivalents, the jayhawkers in the backwater of Missouri.

As one might expect, there is plenty of visceral action, but the focus is on the tension that the war put on the young men who fought it - many of whom were fighting against their former neighbours and even family. Jake Roedel (Tobey Maguire) is such a man, or rather, boy, as he is only seventeen when the war reaches Missouri. He is the son of a German immigrant, but instead of following his countrymen and becoming a Unionist, he joins his lifelong friend Jack Bull Chiles (Skeet Ulrich) and rides with the bushwhackers. Despite a lack of acceptance because of his ancestry and an unwillingness to participate in the murder of unarmed Union men, he remains loyal to the cause. So does his friend Daniel Holt (Jeffrey Wright), a black slave freed by another bushwhacker and so fighting for the South.

Lee handles the subject with aplomb, never rushing the deep introspection that the plot demands in favour of action and this lends the film a sense of the reality of war - long periods of boredom and waiting interposed with occasional flashes of intensely terrifying fighting. The action is unglamorised and admirably candid, recognising that both sides committed a great number of atrocities.

The performances are superb, with Maguire and Wright both courageous and dignified. Up-and-coming Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers is particularly chilling as a cold-blooded killer, while Skeet Ulrich is enjoyably suave and arrogant. Lee never flinches from the reality of war, but his actors do an admirable job of showing the good that comes from it - the growth of friendship, the demonstration of courage and, on a wider scale, the emancipation of oppressed peoples. Ride With the Devil is a beautiful and deeply compassionate film that regularly shocks but always moves the audience.