Due to the rise of streaming services and the convenience they afford us for accessing high quality media, the poor old Blu Ray has gone into something of a decline over the last few years. One great side effect of that is that they are now incredibly cheap and can be picked up for next to nothing. I recently did just that, and The Butler was one of a dozen or so movies that I acquired. I had never actually heard of the film before, which is surprising, but I decided to take the extremely small risk of spending 50p on it as it sounded interesting. What I discovered was a fascinating tale about a man who served eight different American presidents through their terms in the White House.
The Butler is based on a true story, though it is a fictionalised version of events so certain things may have been exaggerated for dramatic effect. As the film begins the main character Cecil Gaines (brilliantly played by Forest Whitaker) is just a boy, living and working in a cotton plantation for a white family. Not long into the movie, his mother is raped by a particularly nasty piece of work, and when his father goes to confront his wife's attacker, he is shot dead. Cecil's mother is never the same after this, and he never steps out of line again. Eventually the oldest member of the white family decides to train Cecil to work inside the house, which is where he learns things like the proper etiquette of which fork goes where, and how to make yourself fade into the background.
After about a decade or so, we see that Cecil is getting ready to leave the plantation for good. Not long into his new life, the weather takes a turn for the worse, and Cecil breaks into a bar for shelter as well as some food. When the coloured head barman discovers him, he helps him out and gives him a job at the bar. After a while the owner notices how good he is at his job and recommends him to the White House, where he has an interview and gets the job. Over the many years that follow, he sees Eisenhauer (Robin Williams), Johnson, (Liev Schreiber), JFK (James Marsters), Nixon (John Cusack) and Reagan (Alan Rickman) come and go.
In parallel to this, Cecil's son Louis gets involved with Martin Luther King, and eventually the Black Panthers. The puts him at odds with his father because he his not allowed to express any political opinion whatsoever while he works at the White House. This eventually drives a wedge between them and creates a wound that would not be healed for a long long time. This is one of those films that the general public absolutely loved but certain critics were rather sniffy about. The critics argued that while the film deals with some very serious and heavy hitting subject matter, the movies still doesn't commit to having an actual opinion about what it is portraying one way or the other.
Personally I found the film to not only be entertaining but also very educational. Being a white middle class male from the UK my knowledge of American history, and black history in particular, is rather limited. So in my opinion, films like The Butler are a good thing, as they help to open the eyes of people like me and get them interested in not only what has happened in the past, but what is unfortunately still happening in parts of America. The Butler may not be as hard hitting as something like BlacKKKlansman but it still has a part to play. I was gripped by the film from beginning to end.
The cast is absolutely amazing, and I would be remiss if I didn't mention Oprah Winfrey in her role as Gloria, Cecil's wife. While I new Winfrey had acted in the past, I had no idea she was this talented. The movie also looks great and really benefits from being in HD. So if you ask me you should forget the snooty critics and just give this film a try. Unfortunately it doesn't look as if you can stream it on either Netflix or Amazon Prime at the moment, at least for free. There should be plenty of Blu Ray copies available online for cheap though, so I urge you to seek it out and give it a try.
The Butler is based on a true story, though it is a fictionalised version of events so certain things may have been exaggerated for dramatic effect. As the film begins the main character Cecil Gaines (brilliantly played by Forest Whitaker) is just a boy, living and working in a cotton plantation for a white family. Not long into the movie, his mother is raped by a particularly nasty piece of work, and when his father goes to confront his wife's attacker, he is shot dead. Cecil's mother is never the same after this, and he never steps out of line again. Eventually the oldest member of the white family decides to train Cecil to work inside the house, which is where he learns things like the proper etiquette of which fork goes where, and how to make yourself fade into the background.
After about a decade or so, we see that Cecil is getting ready to leave the plantation for good. Not long into his new life, the weather takes a turn for the worse, and Cecil breaks into a bar for shelter as well as some food. When the coloured head barman discovers him, he helps him out and gives him a job at the bar. After a while the owner notices how good he is at his job and recommends him to the White House, where he has an interview and gets the job. Over the many years that follow, he sees Eisenhauer (Robin Williams), Johnson, (Liev Schreiber), JFK (James Marsters), Nixon (John Cusack) and Reagan (Alan Rickman) come and go.
In parallel to this, Cecil's son Louis gets involved with Martin Luther King, and eventually the Black Panthers. The puts him at odds with his father because he his not allowed to express any political opinion whatsoever while he works at the White House. This eventually drives a wedge between them and creates a wound that would not be healed for a long long time. This is one of those films that the general public absolutely loved but certain critics were rather sniffy about. The critics argued that while the film deals with some very serious and heavy hitting subject matter, the movies still doesn't commit to having an actual opinion about what it is portraying one way or the other.
Personally I found the film to not only be entertaining but also very educational. Being a white middle class male from the UK my knowledge of American history, and black history in particular, is rather limited. So in my opinion, films like The Butler are a good thing, as they help to open the eyes of people like me and get them interested in not only what has happened in the past, but what is unfortunately still happening in parts of America. The Butler may not be as hard hitting as something like BlacKKKlansman but it still has a part to play. I was gripped by the film from beginning to end.
The cast is absolutely amazing, and I would be remiss if I didn't mention Oprah Winfrey in her role as Gloria, Cecil's wife. While I new Winfrey had acted in the past, I had no idea she was this talented. The movie also looks great and really benefits from being in HD. So if you ask me you should forget the snooty critics and just give this film a try. Unfortunately it doesn't look as if you can stream it on either Netflix or Amazon Prime at the moment, at least for free. There should be plenty of Blu Ray copies available online for cheap though, so I urge you to seek it out and give it a try.
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