Wonderful Biopic of a White House Butler
THE BUTLER is a film which, for all its sentimental tone, nonetheless addresses the fundamental issue of civil rights, and whether the reforms of the Sixties have actually had the desired effect. It centers on the life of Cecil Gaines (Forrest Whitaker), who grew up on a plantation but spent most of his career in service at the White House. To his son Louis (David Oyelowo), Cecil is nothing more than a representative of "Uncle Tom" culture, spending his life in willing thrall to the white man. On the other hand Cecil manages to provide for his family and carve out a career; it is only late on in his life, when President Ronald Reagan (Alan Rickman) offers him an opportunity to savor something that he has never previously experience, that he understands how little his masters have changed, ideologically speaking, since the days of racial segregation. This is the film's "aha-moment" - from then on Gaines devotes himself to the cause of equal rights. THE BUTLER...
For history beginners, this is a cleancut yet tough take on U.S. racial politics
"Lee Daniels' The Butler, while taking liberties from the original source, is a commendable effort with Forest Whitaker's performance as a subtle, understated White House butler in a more grounded light than we would normally see with recent race-oriented films like Django Unchained or a film from Spike Lee (which many of his films talk about something tough but boil down to a heavy and potentially one-sided argument).
The film reflects much of the butler's years working since childhood to an elderly age and it reflects his life in motion with his alcoholic, disenchanted wife played by billionaire Oprah Winfrey, his rebellious son who joins the Black Panthers and demonstrates at sit-ins, and his naive youngest son who goes to Vietnam. It was a very interesting experience to watch this fictionalised persona Cecil Gaines (Whitaker), based on the real-life Eugene Allen, play it so good-to-the-bone that there is an inner sadness and melancholy in his character that amid the...
"A MUST SEE - Emotional, Timely, Passionate, Powerful, Loving Is "The Butler""
In this day and age when civil rights (equal rights) are still being battled in the courtrooms (even 237 years later after the Bill of Rights and Constitution was signed) with issues like Gay Marriage and Women's Rights (which are still forcing people to fight for their own personal freedoms and choices because of archaic minded judges, courtrooms, bible beaters or just plain ignorant and intolerant people who think they are better then anyone else), this movie, "The Butler" shines through a dark page in America's long history to remind all of us that our justice system is very slow to operate, even more slower to learn and - to this day, does not still embrace equal or civil rights of all Americans equally.
Director Lee Daniel's (Precious, The Paperboy) did three amazing things; One, he used writer/actor Danny Strong's (The Hunger Games: Mockingjay 1 & 2) masterful screenplay adaption of an original news article of "A Butler Well Served by This Election" written by Wil...
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