'Emancipation' review: Imperfect vehicle for Will Smith's 'comeback'

As for the picture’s subject, most information about him — including his name, Peter — is likely inaccurate and possibly flat-out fabricated. Which is to say, he’s a story ripe for the Hollywood treatment.

Will Smith plays Peter in “Emancipation” — the actor’s first movie to address slavery. It's also his first movie following his disgraceful Oscar-night slap of host Chris Rock, which resulted in Smith's 10-year ban from the ceremony. "Emancipation,” a survivalist action-thriller directed by Antoine Fuqua (“Training Day”) from a script by William N. Collage, seems positioned as Smith’s comeback; it even received a one-week Oscar qualifying theatrical run before debuting on Apple TV+.

McFarland’s gaffe is somewhat analogous to the movie he produced: well-intentioned, slightly misguided and a little self-serving. Granted, “Emancipation” isn’t trying to be a serious drama like “12 Years a Slave.” Nor is it trying to push audiences’ buttons like Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained.” Its closest comparison might be a peak-period Mel Gibson movie like “The Patriot” — an old-fashioned adventure story with clear heroes and despicable villains.

Smith plays the Haitian-born Peter as a man of quiet faith raising a family with his wife, Dodienne (Charmaine Bingwa), while enslaved on a Louisiana plantation. Hearing that Lincoln has freed the slaves, Peter makes a break for freedom with three others (Gilbert Owuor, Jabbar Lewis and Michael Luwoye). Their goal: to make it to the Union forces in Baton Rouge before they’re captured or killed by Fassel, an eerily easygoing slave-tracker played by Ben Foster.

“Emancipation” can be a pulse-pounder, especially during its scenes in the perilous swamps. (Remember that bear in “The Revenant?” Here it’s an alligator.) The movie is duty-bound, however, to show us the brutality of slavery: point-blank shootings, decapitations and so on. These scenes don’t exactly broaden our understanding of the antebellum South, and they’re a heavy price to pay for a movie that’s trying to stay fleet-footed.

As for Smith, “Emancipation” is a good reminder of the actor’s versatility. This time last year, he was a charming tennis dad in “King Richard,” the role that would earn him his first Oscar. Peter is a less nuanced figure, but Smith disappears into him completely, looking alternately hunted, haunted and murderous. If the film doesn’t fully gel — its late detour into the midst of the Civil War is spectacularly staged but feels like an afterthought — it's no fault of Smith’s.

For all its harrowing moments, “Emancipation” is best judged as a piece of entertainment, and on that point it just about succeeds. Redemption for Smith, however, may still be some distance away.

By Rafer Guzmán

rafer.guzman@newsday.com