The story of Nat Turner

Birth of a nation Run Time: 120 Minutes Starring: Nate Parker, Armie Hammer, Aja Naomi King Director: Nate Parker Director-writer-lead Nate Parker at last brings the story of Nat Turner’s 1831 slave rebellion to the screen in what will hit home with many viewers.

The film vividly captures an assortment of slavery’s brutalities. Nat Turner was taught to read and eventually groomed as a preacher for his fellow slaves.

In Parker’s script, the story for which he wrote with Jean McGianni Celestin, young Nat Turner (Parker) is largely shielded from the worst depredations by a master roughly his own age, Samuel Turner.

Nat can even exercise a degree of influence over Samuel, as when he suggests that Samuel buy the attractive teenage slave Cherry (Aja Naomi King) so he, Nat, can marry her.

The film offers a succession of vivid set-piece depictions of whiteon-black brutality. Cherry is attacked for no reason and, for his part, Nat is struck for merely preaching to slaves.

Nat now takes the edict “smite the oppressor” to heart, using it as grounds to mount a slave insurrection.

The screenplay builds up to this moment with care.

By the same token, the staging of Nat Turner’s climactic nocturnal raid on white households, during which between 55 and 65 people were killed, could have been made more affecting.

Still, the film offers up more than enough in terms of intelligence to not at all be considered a missed opportunity. – Hollywood Reporter