Ride with the Devil (1999)
Average Rating: 6.2/10
Reviews Counted: 65
Fresh: 41 | Rotten: 24
A well-acted, eccentric Civil War film, Ang Lee's Ride With the Devil is often more visually striking than it is emotionally engaging.
Average Rating: 5.9/10
Critic Reviews: 18
Fresh: 10 | Rotten: 8
A well-acted, eccentric Civil War film, Ang Lee's Ride With the Devil is often more visually striking than it is emotionally engaging.
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Average Rating: 3.3/5
User Ratings: 7,138
My Rating
Movie Info
A complex tale of uneasy alliances and hostilities along the Kansas/Missouri border during the Civil War, Ride with the Devil opens in 1862. The story concerns Jack Bull Chiles (Skeet Ulrich), a proud son of the South ready to fight for the Confederate cause after his father is killed by Yankee troops. Chiles's friend, Jake Roedel (Tobey Maguire), joins the Bushwhackers, a group of renegade Southerners aligned with the Confederate Army, even though his family supports the Union cause - which
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Cast
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Skeet Ulrich
Jack Bull Chiles -
Tobey Maguire
Jake Roedel -
Jewel
Sue Lee Shelley -
Jeffrey Wright
Daniel Holt -
Simon Baker
George Clyde -
Jonathan Rhys Meyers
Pitt Mackeson -
Jim Caviezel
Black John -
Tom Guiry
Riley Crawford -
Tom Wilkinson
Orton Brown -
Jonathan Brandis
Cave Wyatt -
Matthew Faber
Turner Rawls -
Stephen Mailer
Babe Hudspeth -
John Ales
Quantrill -
Zach Grenier
Mr. Evans -
Margo Martindale
Wilma Brown -
Mark Ruffalo
Alf Bowden -
Celia Weston
Mrs.Clark
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All Critics (75) | Top Critics (20) | Fresh (42) | Rotten (25) | DVD (15)
Lee appears to have been torn between making a character study and an action movie, so both elements get short shrift.
Top CriticThe intriguing (if not always successful) result is an oddly contemplative picture about a horribly bellicose time.
A sublime contemplation of the American character at a particularly revealing time in our struggle to become a nation.
A film that would inspire useful discussion in a history class, but for ordinary moviegoers, it's slow and forbidding.
Admirably expressive.
Unengaging!
The Lawrence massacre provides no catharsis, only a sense of despair at the state of the human condition and at young men turned psychopaths.
Like all of Lee's films, Ride with the Devil, an ambitious Civil War epic featuring career-best performances by Tobey Maguire and Jeffrey Wright, appeals more to the ears than the eyes and is more literate than cinematic.
the main characters, despite their various complexities, are never particularly compelling and therefore fail to draw us into (or help us make sense of) the film's abstract themes
Bucolic scenes of men at rest in beautiful wild landscapes and families gathered over meals in manors and homesteads are shattered by battles...
'It ain't right; it ain't wrong; it just is.' That line, in a nutshell, pretty much sums up Ride with the Devil.
This isn't the usual Civil War tale of learning to respect a man regardless of his race.... It's about how true freedom comes from love, from respect, and from self-sacrifice.
Lee is a master storyteller.
Sustains a standard of realism that can induce extraordinary tension.
...unexpectedly watchable due mostly to the above-average performances from Tobey Maguire, Jeffrey Wright and even Jewel (in her film debut).
Does for Civil War movies what 1991's Mobsters did for gangster movies.
Lacking the charisma of a truly great film... Ride with the Devil manages to succeed more in principle than it does in the moment.
Lee has cast his film with the cream of rising actors.
Audience Reviews for Ride with the Devil
Super Reviewer
The cast in this film is what impressed me the most really, Maguire, Ulrich, Wright and Rhys-Meyers stand out from the crowd but all perform well plus they all look great in their costumes, think of a cross between 'Interview with the Vampire' and 'Colonel Sanders' :) with their long flowing hair and thin sharp facial hair. I liked how the guerrilla's were dressed with their dandy outfits and feathered hats also, unsure if that's how they really looked but its different and visually striking.
Location work looks great, filmed in Missouri with plenty of beautiful woodlands and some authentic sets as you would expect in a major western. Not allot of action in the film, only the real event of the Lawrence Massacre is all you get which is decent but not a classic historic movie moment. For a war film (of sorts) its more about the relationship between friends amidst the battles really, not overly epic and emotional as you might expect which isn't a bad thing but with a long run time some may get turned off.
Super Reviewer
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- Jake Roedel: From both north and south men are everyday enslaved at the altar, regardless of their state or color.
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