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We had the trailer for 40 Acres recently, and it looked OK. We then had a screener sent through, and I was able to watch it. Overall, it’s a good movie, just not great.
40 Acres stars Danielle Deadwyler, Kataem O’Connor, Michael Greyeyes, Milcania Diaz-Rojas, Leenah Robinson, Jaeda LeBlanc, and Elizabeth Saunders. R. T. Thorne is the director, who co-wrote the script with Glenn Taylor and Lora Campbell.
The story
The story is:
In a post-apocalyptic world with food scarcity, a Black family of Canadian farmers descended from American Civil War migrants defend their homestead against cannibals trying to seize their resources.
Yes, it’s another cannibal movie. Reading the comments from you wonderful Outposters, I remember someone saying what the expression ’40 acres and a mule’ meant. I went into this movie a little dubious, but it didn’t get political, well, I didn’t think so.
The movie is set in a post-apocalyptic world. Everyone is on edge, and land is protected violently. We meet the Freeman family, who have owned their land for many years.
A stranger approaches, completely innocent, but they know the score. As a few more strangers approach, bullets start to fly. This sets the tone of the movie, everything is a battle to the death.
The Family
The Freeman’s own the farm, and the mother, Hailey (Deadwyler), keeps a strict watch on everything and makes sure everyone survives. She is pretty hard with it all, to the point of being very unlikeable, but I’ll come back to that.
The eldest son, Emanuel (O’Connor) sees a girl in a river one day, and he doesn’t tell his mom because the girl is cute. It all ends up with her tied up in a barn, I can’t tell you how many women I’ve met that end up the same way.
Emanuel ends up falling for the girl, but his mom is not happy about it. That’s all the story I will spoil; it’s a solid story, but a tired one.
The Cast
Overall, the cast is very good in this, apart from the mother, Deadwyler. I can never understand why people have to write such horrible main characters.
Look, I get she’s out to save her family and keep them safe. I don’t have kids, but from what movies have told me, they seem to be very important to the parents. However, Hailey is kind of a bitch as time goes on.
The only other thing I can think of to compare to 40 Acres is Ripley in Aliens. She’s not Newt’s mother, but Newt is the daughter she lost. Ripley ends up taking on a queen alien to save her ‘daughter’. She’s a mother figure, but she’s likeable, and you are with her 100% of the journey.
Hailey is the one who holds the family together, but man, I would think about putting a bullet in her head after a while. There’s being protective, and being completely overbearing.
Overall
40 Acres is a good movie, yes, they deal with cannibalism, but it’s not rammed down your throat, pun intended. In this movie, the future is bleak. From the opening, when you see the family killing random strangers, you know it’s not the nicest place to live; this isn’t set in the Star Trek future where everyone is nice to each other.
The direction is good throughout the movie, nothing amazing, but good enough to follow the story. As always, it’s the little things in the script that are annoying. In the opening, one of the strangers is injured but not killed. I think it was Hailey who said about not wasting bullets.
How do they deal with the badly injured stranger? Shoot her in the head, you know, wasting a bullet.
40 Acres did tend to drag a little towards the end, and the story becomes a cliché. There is a reveal, but it’s a ‘No way, I’m totally shocked…not’ type of thing. I’m not the best at second-guessing movie plots, but even I saw it coming.
As I said at the outset, the expression ’40 acres and a mule’ did give me a little apprehension. For me, though, the movie did dig into the whole ‘oppression of anyone’. Then, it’s not like I go into a movie thinking I’m going to be confronted with it. I’m sure there are those who will say how politically incorrect it is. I disagree, though. It’s just a half-decent story/movie.
I’m giving 40 Acres 2 out of 5 stars. I watched it about a week ago and have only just got around to writing the review now. I don’t think I even gave it a second thought; there wasn’t much to mull over and, in the end, it was pretty forgettable.
Side Note
I don’t usually, but the press release for the movie mentioned the score on shill central Rotten Tomatoes. They seem to love it over there; most of the comments are about Deadwyler’s performance in 40 Acres.
Looking her up, and she was in a movie called The Woman in the Yard. I watched this recently, and I now remember she had exactly the same character: an overly protective mother and kind of a bitch about it. I guess this is her MO.
At the end of the day, no one cares what the Rotten Tomato score is; we all know they pay for their reviews. I will always be as honest as I can The Last Movie Outpost won’t sell out…we’ve never been offered the chance.
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