Mudbound Review

We live in an age where Netflix, Amazon and other streaming services are changing the way we do movies and TV. I don't review everything I watch on Netflix. For the most part I use that for my own personal entertainment while occasionally throwing something up on Facebook or Twitter about what I watched. In fact, that's exactly what I was going to do for this movie. But as I started typing up my "quick thoughts" on Facebook, I realized there was a lot to say here, so I might as well turn this into a full review. "Mudbound" is a movie that you will see with the official title of a Netflix original film, but the true story is that this has been a popular festival movie this year as it initially premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, followed by showings in several big film festivals such as the Toronto International Film Festival and the New York Film Festival. Along the way it's picked up a lot of momentum heading into awards season with solid reviews from critics and festival goers. Netflix and Amazon have been going to the festivals the last few years and have been buying the rights to films like these. "Mudbound" was Netflix's major purchase this year, as they beat out the likes of A24 and Annapurna for distribution rights. And they're giving it a heavy push for awards.

The movie is based off the novel of the same name by Hillary Jordan and is set in rural Mississippi around the time frame of World War II. Henry McAllan, played by Jason Clarke, has purchased a farm and moves his family there, despite the fact that his wife Laura, played by Carey Mulligan, was never really a fan of this idea. She was enjoying her life as a domestic house wife. In fact, she was never really madly in love with him in the first place, but married him anyways for various reasons. But she accepts the change and they move in, working on his dream of becoming farmers. Moving in with them is Henry's violently racist father, played by Jonathan Banks from "Breaking Bad" and "Better Call Saul." This you know is going to cause major issues given that tenants on this farm are the black family, Hap and Florence Jackson, played by Rob Morgan and Mary J. Blige, along with their kids. Along with this, we have the beginning of the United States' involvement in World War II, instigated by the attack on Pearl Harbor. Henry's brother Jamie, played by Garrett Hedlund, as well as the Jackson son Ronsel, played by Jason Mitchell, go off to war and become friends when they get back as they bond over war experiences and both try to integrate back into normal life.

If this sounds super complex, it's really not. This is just a really long movie, clocking in at 134 minutes. The movie does follow a narrative structure that I'm not a huge fan of. We start at the end of the story, tease something major and intense, then jump back to the beginning and spend the rest of the story building up to that point. This is something that a lot of TV shows that I watch do frequently and while it occasionally works, I mostly am tired of it as I don't think it's a structure that's super effective. I get the idea of teasing audiences, thus putting them on the edge of their seats as they intensely watch the story unfold, eager to learn how we get to that point and how everything is going to be resolved. And maybe the filmmakers thought that this was important because a lot of nothing happens following that intro. But I'd rather have the element of surprise in my story. In this situation, we have yet another story about racism on a farm or a plantation in our country's history and thus I already knew that something bad was going to happen. Thus the only thing that teasing me at the beginning ended up accomplishing was giving me vital clues that ended up helping me piece together exactly what was going to happen once we got into the meat of the story.

That narrative structure, though, was more of a minor annoyance for me. If the rest if the movie was an epic, important masterpiece, I would've been able to forgive the movie. I think the bigger issue for me is that while watching this movie, I felt like I had seen this exact movie done a hundred times before. There's a lot of movies about racism and slavery on the farm/plantation scene, thus if we're going to do it again, the movie needs to do something to separate itself from the crowd. "Mudbound" certainly isn't a bad movie, but I don't think it has the element of uniqueness needed for me to recommend that this is a must-see for educational purposes that can teach us about the horrific things that happened in the past while applying said themes to the present day where racism is still a huge issue. Instead I kept feeling while watching that this was a less important, less intense version of "12 Years a Slave." The big differences being that this is in the 1940's, not the 1800's, and the black family on the farm in "Mudbound" are there on their own free will as opposed to being slaves. Outside that, these are two very similar movies. If I'm being honest, "12 Years a Slave" is the movie I would recommend you seeing while "Mudbound" is one that's not necessary.

The other major problem with "Mudbound" is the pacing of the movie. This is a movie that is 134 minutes long. And while I'm not inherently opposed to long movies, the aforementioned "12 Years a Slave" is the exact same length, if you're going to go long, you need to justify your run time. Whatever time you need to properly tell your story, take it. "Mudbound" is a movie that has this intriguing opening scene, but then spends 110 minutes of its 134 minute run time building up to this moment. We spend a lot of time learning about both families, spend time with both Jamie and Ronsel off at war, spend time with them as they become friends afterwards, and through it all I'm thinking that this could've been at least 30 minutes shorter. Or maybe the big moment could've happened halfway through the movie instead of towards the end, then we could've stretched that part out a bit to give the movie more balance. Or something like that. Point is we had a really long movie that spent most of its run time building up to the final sequence without having a whole ton of drama or intensity in the process. It could've used a bit more polishing somewhere in order to capture my attention for the entire movie instead of just during that final act.

What helps the movie out is solid acting across the board. I did a lot of name-dropping of actors playing each role in that second paragraph and I did that because all of them deserve a mention. If this movie does get love during the awards season, the voters will have a lot of performances to choose from. If the Oscars had a category for best ensemble cast, that would be the most appropriate place to award this movie. A few of the pre-cursors do have that and I hope they include. But for the major awards shows that leave that category out, we instead have to play this game of who are we going to nominate. My choice is Jason Mitchell as Ronsel followed closely by Garrett Hedlund as Jamie. While the movie is about a lot of characters, I would contend it's mainly about these two and both of these characters are the ones who have the best story arcs. Mitchell and Hedlund both do a great job of selling their roles so that you buy this relationship and have strong emotional connections when they are put through heavy criticisms for  simply being friends. My third choice would be Jonathan Banks for his despicable villainous turn which would then be followed by Jason Clarke, Carey Mulligan, Mary J. Blige and Rob Morgan all on even levels behind those three.

I will conclude that, while the movie suffers from these pacing issues and doesn't set itself apart from the crowd of films that touch on this subject matter, the final act in the movie is done well enough to sell me to the positive side when it comes to this review. Given that the movie spoils itself enough with that opening sequences, I'm going to stay far away from spoilers here and thus not tell you much of these positives. I will simply say that the aforementioned acting from everyone involved does a great job of adding to the emotional weight of that final act. I also won't talk about the themes in the movie that you are left with once the final credits roll, but those are also satisfying enough to make me pleased with the final result of the film. And I loved the song that was playing during those credits. Thus in summary, it's hard to pinpoint this movie down and give it one definitive grade. Perhaps if I've made you curious enough, you can sit down and find out for yourself? You don't have to find a theater or pay for a ticket. If you have a Netflix account this is a free watch that you can stop at any time if you decide it's not your thing. But for me, when I weigh the strong positives with the concerning negatives, I think a fair overall grade for "Mudbound" would be a 7/10.