Ride with the Devil

The film was pulled from American cinemas within days. Universal's financial troubles at the time combined with a general failure to decide what the picture was, and in 1999 the critics attacked it, the studio dropped it and audiences stayed away. Ang Lee later went back to his own cut. The director's cut runs 148 minutes, ten minutes longer than the theatrical version, with the Lawrence massacre sequence expanded. Criterion released the director's cut on both DVD and Blu-ray, and that is the version in circulation now. The subject is the Civil War on the Kansas-Missouri border. Jake and Jack Bull join the Confederate-sympathising Bushwhackers after Jack Bull's father is killed by abolitionist Jayhawkers. With them is Holt, a former slave fighting for the South. Jeffrey Wright's performance is the film's hardest and best element. The singer Jewel made her acting debut here. Who it is for: viewers who want the Civil War at the level of rural gangs rather than battle lines, in a morally murky western. Who it is not for: anyone needing a clear side. The film vindicates nobody and never tries to make you sympathise with the cause its protagonists fight for.