The Confederate States of America (2004)

I have to say I had very mixed reactions to this film. On one hand, it presents a very interesting "what if" scenario: What if the South had won the Civil War? Logistics of this aside, one can't help but admit that is one heck of an alternate reality. On the other hand, to be perfectly honest, it wasn't exceedingly well made. In fact, most of the time it comes off as downright amateur. So the question ends up being "Does an interesting concept make up for something lacking in quality?" To that end, I have to come down on the side of, "no."

I think the biggest problem I had with "The Confederate States of America" was two-fold. First was the fact that the concept was so unbelievable. From a former Civil War junkie, I'll just say that for the South to win was...not likely. The only way they could have won was for England to have gotten involved on their side, which in the film's defense, they had happen. But it's still a load of hooey. The other issue I had was the idea that the Civil War was all about slavery. This is simply not true at all. I won't bother writing about it. Just read a textbook.

The "documentary" is told in the format of a BBC film. The problem is that it's not really told well. I can't really describe it, but suffice to say that I never really believed this alternate reality. It didn't unfold in an organic way for me. The steps from Point A to Point B to Point C didn't seem natural. Lots of aspects of the war seemed to be overlooked simply for the purpose of them rendering the plot impossible. The war was a lot more complicated than what the movie would have you believe, is what I'm trying to say.

So was the Apollo fueled by moonshine?

But it is pretty obvious that the credibility of the events is not the main focus of the movie. The focus is the racism. After all, the main point is the thought that slavery is still alive and thriving in our current times. And along with this comes what is also seems to be the biggest highlight of the movie, which is the commercials.

The commercials, all of which are about slaves, seem to be what the movie is really about. Because apparently, in this universe, the only thing that is advertised has to do with slaves. Really? That's the only product? No car commercials? No beer? Everything has to mention slaves? I know that it goes along with the theme of the film, but if you're going to break the fourth wall like that, it better be convincing. It just really smacked of wanting to shove a whole bunch of "funny" stuff in there without any other context.

That brings me to the "funny." How humorous the movie is determines on how willing you are to laugh at being offended by some pretty ridiculous racism. If that kind of thing makes you uncomfortable, you're probably going to walk away offended. If not, you'll probably going to get some good chuckles at the shear "what the crap" of it all. I personally found it to be somewhat funny, but not side-splitting. But then again, I consider myself to have something of a dark sense of humor, which will help with this a lot. However, there were still moments when I said "OK, that's a little much."

This dark humor, while obviously the lynch-pin of the film, was honestly not strong or smart enough to really salvage the amateur nature of the rest of it. What it really needed was some subtlety. Instead, what we got was "Hey! Check it out! Blackface! Isn't that hilariously racist?!" with all the grace of a monster truck smashing cars.

THE BOTTOM LINE - It's an interesting concept, and perhaps that will be enough to warrant a viewing. But to be honest, there wasn't quite enough quality to live up to the potential the idea had. If you have a really dark sense of humor there are definitely laughs to be had due to the pure audacity. Other than that, not really recommended, although I will suggest "Bamboozled" as an alternative.