tom jones
This movie was to my liking, it had all the action oriented scenes placed together to keep the viewer interested. The characters were fairly mysterious incorporating wanderers of the town and a heavy set of anti-semetism combined with promiscuity and adulteress affairs. What happened in rosewood was a supposed intervention or clash, not a massacre but maybe a clash of culture. This movie depicts that aspect of rosewood quite well, until maybe the climax where the whole town revolts. The lynchings were due to migration, Florida was heavily under influence of migration ever since the civil war due to lack of farming. The residents did not want to be involved but in fact if rosewood hadnt occurred the whole town would have been forgotten and abandoned. They merely killed themselves because the africans reacted too harshly and triggered a devastating response. It is said they shot the officers or town residents due to infringement in privacy. The anti-semetism involved was far too extreme even for white people. Historically speaking though, the movie turned into t2 judgement day or some sort of action thriller apocalypse, the good guy was prostituting himself with the town folks...maybe he deserved to be 'caught up.' It was just not realistic or believable imho...which puts me to an odds end to where these categories truly fall under. Based on a true story or Based on true events. Authentic movies that I have seen before which portray real events quit accurately are not apocalypse now, titanic or Apollo 13 but documented based movies such as boogie nights, fire in the sky, or mobster movies with the likes of Scarface & Goodfellas where the actual events look like they could have actually played out in that fashion. If you like the latter, you'll like this movie.If the film is good its because it was for the viewer to interpret it correctly. What I think it was is that the wife with diabetes is the murderer whom got shot's wife. The murderer john d or watever is probably the guy at the end. There was probably two murderers he was chasing which he encountered before being knocked out. His wife prob died. The diabetic is probably one of the murderer's wives. Then the movie may be good..okay.
Kenneth Sutherland
I just saw the movie this week. I'm sorry to say the film was a disappointment, historically, and especially the fictional character, Mann, with rope burns around his neck, and his trick horse! The true story didn't have a superhero with a well-trained horse at the Rosewood massacre. Many of the events, violence based hate crimes, which took place in Rosewood, did actually happen though, at Rosewood, and in many towns and cities in America, Post WWI. As you can see and hear the tone in the Sylvester character, and the "white townies" portrayed, America wasn't ready for equality, or even separate but equal. I saw the children as hope; most of the adults were trapped in that behavior. PBS, or the History Channel, should have made the movie, or else edit the fiction out of the movie for a 45 minute version, an hour with commercials.
dusan-22
Wow, this is American Shindler's List, except no Academy Awards. A reminder that the US - a greatest world teacher of justice had had the practical Nazism on the life stage the way deep into the XX century when most of their today 'pupils' among the world countries already had parliamentary democracies. It seems that US constitution has never really matched its legal performance in practice. Good movie, excellent casting. I love Ving Rhames and John Voit performance, also Don Chiedle and Michael Rooker, very good character matching achieved. I also respect a movie making without usual Hollywood softeners. Pretty authentic and shocking. By the way, I bumped into this movie by coincidence as I had never heard about it before.
Lee Eisenberg
Part of what makes "Rosewood" so hard to watch - but I recommend it very much - is not only that it really happened, but also the thought that the events portrayed may have partly been the root of what happened in Florida in 2000. With this vicious racism so deeply ingrained in our society, it's no surprise that Florida's government deprived a number of African-Americans of their right to vote. For more information about these sorts of things, read James Loewen's book "Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong".But anyway, this is a great (and I would say under-appreciated) movie. Jon Voight, Ving Rhames, Don Cheadle, Michael Rooker and Muse Watson all do a great job in their roles. Definitely one of John Singleton's really good ones.
AD
