Not Tobey: Devil Without a Cause

Ride with the Devil

Ang Lee has a reputation for his ability to exploit his character's internal conflicts in any time or place, be it Jane Austen's England in his 1995 release Sense and Sensibility, or the alienated '70s suburbia of 1997's The Ice Storm. Yet his latest project, Ride With the Devil, based on Daniel Woodrell's novel Woe to Live On, reflects the damage too much praise can have on a director. All that distinguishes Ride with the Devil as anything other than a glorified action flick is a splattering of historical nuances and the occasional flirtation with character complexity.

The opening scene is an antebellum wedding for the wealthy, giving the film a Gone With The Wind air. Commenting that weddings are just another "peculiar institution," two boys on the verge of manhood, Jake "Dutchie" Roedel (Tobey Maguire) and Jack Bull Chiles (Skeet Ulrich) suddenly decide they must become active participants in the preservation of the Southern way of life. Yet this brief conversation fails to justify the movie's dramatic tension. For Roedel and Chiles, risking life and limb is simply one more game. The charade is pervasive, as Ulrich looks entirely out of place in his Civil War era costume, especially given his role in Scream. Maguire tries entirely too hard to appear genuinely Southern, for even his gait is a self-conscious swagger.

The pleasant afternoon fades into a Jayhawk raid on a slave-owning farm. This rapid transition lets Lee quickly establish the historical subtext for the film. Lee's unique insight in exploring a different angle of the Civil War, namely the conflict in Missouri between Kansas Jayhawkers (fighting to destroy slavery) and Bushwackers (Southern guerillas), should be commended. Lacking ties with the established armies, these "irregulars," traveling in bands such as the one Roedel and Chiles join, rode through the countryside killing innocent people and destroying enemy farms.

Overall, however, the film lacks a convincing historical grounding and the initial battles become entertaining occasions for fancy horse tricks, barn burnings, gunfights and bloodshed. The men seem to enjoy the brotherhood of slaughter and use the Civil War as an excuse to release testosterone. Jonathan Rhys Meyers, while adding to the cast of visually appealing young males, should never be seen in Civil War costume again. He looks like a rock star attempting to cut a hip urban cowboy image for a music video rather than the blood-thirsty, Roedel-hating Bushwacker Pitt Mackeson. Why Mackeson actually hates Roedel remains a mystery; nonetheless, Mackeson purposely shoots Roedel during a battle. Meyers' character remains superfluous eye-candy meant to balance Jewel's physical appeal later in the film.

At camp after a raid, Lee imposes a layer of complexity on the film, for George Clyde (Simon Baker) has a black slave, Daniel Holt (Jeffery Wright) in his company. Holt serves the confederate cause, and his unique position as a slave torn between loyalty for his master and boyhood friend, Clyde, and his desire for freedom, adds the most intriguing and ironic layer to the film.

Each scene becomes more and more reflective of a cinematic game, as the men fight from summer to fall with individual deaths meaning little. Lee's fade-outs to nature are beautiful portraits of the rich Missouri countryside, yet he is almost too proud of his ability to capture these scenes on film. While he tries to establish a distinction between active battle and quiet days at camp, each fade-out is one more step away from the film's chance to redeem itself with a coherent story line. Hints of Lee's genius as a director do show in his later battle scenes, where the rhythmic beating of horse hooves and the jarring sounds of gunfire conjure images of a Remmington painting.

Unfortunately, the plot and screenplay detract from the film's artistic merit. James Schamus' screenplay might reflect the language of the Civil War, yet the dialogue is entirely self-important and melodrama destroys any stake the viewer might have in the plot. Lee wishes to establish the North as a human presence, so Roedel reads some found union letters to the camp. Similarly, Lee has Roedel and Chiles talk under the stars to emphasize the characters' brotherhood.

The film's most distracting element, Jewel, playing the sweet widow Sue Lee Shelley, appears later in the film when Roedel, Chiles, and Holt move to a dugout to wait away the winter. Jewel is surprisingly good at engaging in dialogue, yet she visibly shies away from the camera when she finishes her lines. Lee quickly establishes a romantic relationship between Shelley and Chiles, who sires a child before dying in a federal raid on the dugout. Chiles death scene is sickeningly melodramatic as Roedel and Holt first attempt to amputate Chiles' diseased arm, only to realize that Chiles' death is inevitable. Jewel attempts to be a grieving lover, yet the camera does not stop wandering over her buxom chest.

Chiles' death provides the needed pause to prevent the plot and historical subtext from spinning out of control. Lee, who has forgotten about Holt's unique story until now, quickly exploits the uneasy relationship between Southern white women and black male slaves. He also finally allows Holt to express his desire for freedom. Similarly, a Bushwacker sympathizer reveals why he believes the North will win, "They fight because they believe everyone should have liberty and freedom. We fight because we care about ourselves." Lee deserves credit for addressing this astute evaluation of the Civil War.

As spring approaches, the film seems to grow longer and longer. Lee allows an artificial sense of dramatic climax to unfold with the 1863 Bushwacker assault on Lawrence, Kansas. The viewer expects Holt and Roedel to perish in a tragic death in battle so Lee can make some sort of universal claim that war is pointless. However, Roedel and Holt merely receive injuries and miraculously, find themselves at the Shelley farm. Images of Jewel breast-feeding her child again distract the viewer and destroy whatever dramatic tension remains. In a contrived plot twist, Shelley maneuvers herself into matrimonial bliss with Roedel, and she, her new child and Roedel set off to California as Holt journeys to freedom.

While Woodrell wishes to "get through the humanity of all involved" in his novel, Lee's Ride With the Devil is merely a mockery of human relationships. Maguire's Jimmy Stewart-like treatment of his character, the unexplored dramatic richness of Holt's story and Jewel's shaky on-screen image detract from Lee's normally rich character development. Lee fails in Ride With the Devil. The film is not poorly conceived, but his past films and demonstrated talent grant occasion to expect more from him. This time, Lee tries too hard bridge the gap between the subtlety and serious nature of indie films with the demands of a Hollywood audience. Unfortunately, he loses both audiences.