8A - The Michigan Daily - Monday, December 13, 1999 ee falters in sade durg 'Ride' By Ed Sholinsky Daily Film Editor Take a great director (Ang Lee) and a great screenwriter (James Schamus) who have worked well together in the past ("The Ice Storm"), give them a large budget and a big concept and what do you have? In the case of Ride with the Devil Opens at the Michigan Theater Dec. 17 script is silly andl action scene. "Ride with the Devil" a big h e a p i n g, mediocre mess. Not only does "Ride with the Devil" lack that certain some- thing that makes a movie great - and in this case good - but it's flawed at its fun- damentals. "Ride with the Devil" is miscast, the Lee can't direct an miscasts the usually excellent Tobev Maguire so that he looks confused most of the film and does'it know what he's supposed to be doing. Since he's playing a character whose dia- logue and actions suggest great con- viction the performance should por- tray this. Maguire's characteristic awkwardness, which has worked to great effect in "The Ice Storm" and "Pleasantville," prevents him from really bringing his performance to fruition here. Lee would have done well not only to recast the film, but also to have studied the westerns of John Ford and Sam Peckinpah, among others, to have gotten some idea how to handle the scope, of "Ride with the Devil." The story is of the Civil War and the peo- ple living in Missouri and Kansas. Since the Confederate army has not sent troops into the frontier, a group of Southerners get together to fight off "Yankee aggressors" - "Jayhawkers" - and Union soldiers and form rough and tumble "Bushwacker" units. These Bushwackers fight a guerrilla war against Northern sympathizers and soldiers in an attempt to regain their homes. The story focuses around two pair of men who come together and form one such Bushwacker unit. Jack Bull Chiles (Ulrich), a rich Southern gzen- tleman, and Jake "Dutchie" Roedel, the poor son of a German immigrant who associates himself with the South, are life-long friends when the join up and meet George Clyde (Simon Baker) and Daniel Holt (Jeffrey Wright). Clyde is a rich landowner and olt is his former slave and also lif'-lon friend. This is the most interesting relationship in the film and almost salvages "Ride with the Devil,~ largely for Wright's tour- de-force performance - easily the best thing about the film. During the winter the men are laid up at a plantation after many hard months of battling Northern-sympa- thizers and looting villages. During this brief hiatus they meet Sue Lee Shelley (Jewel), a Confederate widow and Chiles' love interest. The story takes off from there, examining relationships and sending the men into deadly battle. Over the course of the film loyalties change, people die and new relationships emerge. The problem is that there is no chemistry between the actors. Wright is the only one who can muster up the acting chops to really imply any sort of feelings between the charac- ters. The usually wonderful Lee, who has brought so many books to life on screen ("The Ice Storm," "Sense and Sensibility"), fails to generate any interest in his film. At two hours plus, the film is a bore and has a profound- ly somnambulistic affect. The story itself is interesting, but between Lee's inability to handle the necessary action scenes combined with Schamus' trite and terrible dialogue make "Ride with the Devil" unengag- ing and at times unbearable. It's a shame when a director like Lee who has been so good in the past flops when he is finally in the spot- light. Lee has proven himself one of the most capable directors of the decade with work ranging from "The Wedding Banquet" to "The Ice Storm;" turning his precise eye from Taiwan to Victorian England to the United States, past and present. This slip up shouldn't mark Lee's career, however, and he'll more than likely bounce back with his next film. L.,. ow i Lee relies not only on the poor man's Johnny Depp Skeet Ulrich, but also on untested musician Jewel (no, I'm not kidding) to carry much of the weight of the film. Additionally, Lee Courtesy ofUSA Flms Skeet Ulrich hopes Jewel can save his soul in Ang Lee's "Ride with the Devil." 111 i IE iJo p 'essvrs III 1 I ,11'1 I ' 1 F ALS toL t' Ij FRVZ :1 VISIT ICL ...- Take advantage of this special price on lecture notes from Grade A Notes and start preparing for finals NOW! At Grade A Notes we know that even good students can take bad notes. Whether you missed a day of class or simply want a great study aid our lecture notes can help! Lecture notes are typed in paragraph format so they are easy to read and understand. Lecture notes from Grade A will give you that extra edge you need to make finals a breeze. 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