2.5/5

Well I watched the entire 4.5 hour directors cut in a single sitting. It only took my partner being out of town and 8 light beers. What did I get out of it? Hard to say.

Gettysburg is a sprawling narrative following several key figures at the battle. Everyone wears rather bad looking facial hair, Jeff Daniels plays Col. Chamberlain and I felt bad for him having to wear that mustache the whole time. Sam Elliot plays Gen. Buford and is a highlight of the movie, probably because he got to just have his normal Sam Elliot mustache.

Beyond silly facial hair, the dialogue is overwrought, people talk like they’re in the gospel not a fucking battle, and the film definitely does some confederate apologia. I did not need a sympathetic portrayal of Longstreet and Lee and yet that is what we got. On that note, how did they get Martin Sheen to not only play Lee but also make him the most insufferable effete loser possible. Seriously, they try and paint Lee like a southern gentleman and a genius in a Lost Cause style, but like half of the movie is just Longstreet exactly predicting what will happen while Lee won’t shut up about ‘the men’. If I thought it was intentional it’d be genius, as Lee’s overconfidence and eagerness to strike at the heart of the Union absolutely cost him this battle. Unfortunately painting the ‘gallant southern generals’ as buffoons probably wasn’t intentional, except for Pickett they rightfully and intentionally made that guy look like a fucking moron.

Could have been a really solid 2 hour of movie if it was just the Union side, but instead we got this. At least it didn’t do truly pernicious myths like Black Confederates or a protracted monologue on tariffs. Still the ‘our rights’ scene smacks of lost cause-ism. Bluh.