Sons of Liberty is the History Channel's attempt to get in and swim with the big guys. Other cable channels are producing slick, well made features, while to date the history channel is best known by its collection of Nazi newsclips. How did they do? The cast is strong and the leading actors are intense, attractive and possessed of the ability to utter their lines with a modicum of professionalism. The action is well paced and riveting. So far so good but this is where the strengths end for this effort. People will applaud deviations from strict historical content if they serve to further the dramatic needs of the production. However, this film plays like a bunch of college students attempted to make a movie and then decided to go get a beer instead. The characters are poorly defined and one dimensional. The attempt to capture the dark and gritty lives of colonial America succeed only in creating scenes in which actual darkness precludes visualizing the action. Somebody should tell the producers that cinematic devices only work in otherwise competent story lines. A disjointed and unresolved story (do you guys not know how this ends?) punctuated with clumsy mise en scene equals amateur and pretentious. Can someone make a movie about this subject that is worth watching? HBO and Netflix where are you when we need you?
Review of Sons of Liberty
