TxMike
My wife and I watched this at home on BluRay from our public library. In fact she only watched the first half of it because the story moves very slowly.The movie is a screen adaptation of a John Steinbeck novel of the same title. Steinbeck was a California valley and Stanford man, as was James Franco, who read Steinbeck's work in his younger days and made a personal connection with the author who incidentally died 10 years before Franco was born.In the movie, also directed by him, James Franco is activist Mac. We don't learn much about his backstory but he appears to be sympathetic to the cause of migrant workers and ultimately gives up his life for their causes. As the script at the end of the movie tells us, in the 1930s there were perhaps 2000 strikes, most of them ineffective, but ultimately led to recognition of workers' rights to organize and eventually laws regarding minimum wages.The core point in this movie is migrant workers were lured to pick apples in the valley at a promised wage of $3 per day, not much but in the Great Depression a livable wage. When they arrived, essentially broke, the owners would tell them that unfortunately they could only pay $1 per day, take it or leave it.Mac convinces them ultimately to stand up for their rights, to strike until they received a fair wage. Even though the movie is well under 2 hours it seems long because most of it moves slowly and we intuit where it is going ... several clashes between the migrant workers, the orchard owners, and local lawmen who don't want the trouble in their community. There are beatings and shootings, houses and barns burned down in the middle of the night. So in all it isn't a pleasant movie to watch but it depicts an important chapter in American history.
Red-Barracuda
During the Great Depression of the 1930's, two members of a political activist party start work with apple-pickers at a fruit farm and rally the workers to demand better rights.This was based on a John Steinbeck novel, which I have to admit to not having read. It seems to have been a pretty political work about the labour laws of the day which enabled employers to exploit their workforce by offering extremely low wages. The subject actually seems quite pertinent nowadays considering that we have just gone through another recession with employers being legally allowed to offer workers zero hours contracts. So, the film is a timely reminder that the workforce will unfortunately always have to fight for a fair deal. I thought the film itself was very good, if not necessarily emotionally strong. I didn't feel for the characters as much as I should, as they weren't sketched out quite enough. Having said that, I thought this worked just fine as a message movie. Its subject and time period are pretty unglamorous but it is brought to the screen with authenticity. The film not only looks at the unfairness of the system but also the doubts of those fighting against it. It shows their predicament and illustrated their dilemmas quite well I thought.
Tony Heck
"If you don't make trouble then nothing's gonna change." Jim (Wolf) is growing up in the depression and is tired and angry at the way his family and those he knows are being treated. Wanting to do something about it he meets up with Mac (Franco). Together they start a worker revolt that leads to a strike, but soon things become more dangerous than they expected. This is a movie I went in expecting it to be slow and boring. I mean how can a movie about a fruit picking strike during the great depression be good? I don't know if it was my expectations that played a part but this movie was very good. The movie was tense and I was surprisingly on the edge for most of it. The acting is amazing, but with the cast it has that's not a surprise at all. This film is based off a novel by John Steinbeck and really felt true to his style. The movie plays out as a great companion to The Grapes Of Wrath, this one just had a little more action. Overall, a surprisingly tense and good movie that I do recommend. One of the better historical fiction movies I have seen. I give this a high B+.
FilmCuckoo
"In Dubious Battle" was one of the movies I wanted to see more than any other film from Hollywood in 2016. My original enthusiasm faded quickly only after 10 minutes into the film.Let me explain: "In Dubious Battle" is one of the best Steinbeck novels, as important classic as its companion piece, the unforgettable "Grapes of Wrath", which not only happens during the same time period, also deals with the same issues of this era. "In Dubious Battle" hasn't been filmed before, for obvious reasons, as it has much more clear political message in it, as the main characters are members of the American Communist Party, who are sent on a mission to fight for fair wages among the apple pickers, who are mostly vagrant families and other victims in the downfall of the economic collapse, which lead to the Great Depression. Unlike "Grapes of Wrath", "In Dubious Battle" is mainly about how destructive and unfair the labour laws were during that time, which enabled rich land owners to exploit the destitute workers to the maximum, giving them basically wages which wouldn't have even covered the expenses of food and shelter.However... I find it near inexcusable for what the writers and the director have actually done to this masterpiece of source material. Some of the most memorable scenes and events in the book, have been completely either written out or have been softened or edited into something completely different, which no longer does any justice to the original Steinbeck novel. This has lead to very visible and easily noticeable mistakes and clear errors in the production of the movie. There are totally unforgivable errors of fluid continuity via truly strange film editing, mainly in form of abrupt cutting, which even leave seriously weird time gaps: -As an example, one of the most memorable scenes in the book, is the first meeting between Al and the newly arrived Jim & Mac, has been butchered to a bare minimum, which fails to deliver any of the originally intended importance of this meeting. This is the first truly odd of really weird cuts throughout the film, which leaves in amateur like time-lapses. There should have been a complete scene, where Al prepares for them a free meal out of sympathy and after being flattered, a hamburger steak with mashed potatoes and thick brown gravy, which is described meticulously in detail by Steinbeck in the book, using almost two pages to underline both the hunger of Jim & Mac, and to establish the future important relationship between Al, his father and Jim & Mac.I would see the main culprit for this travesty being mainly the director James Franco. His direction clearly shows he doesn't seem to have any emotional attachment for telling this important story, which is evident in how much has been actually left out from the original complete story. Franco hasn't done anything to cover the obvious and weird time gaps and missing events in this movie. It would be justified to say that Franco probably hasn't concentrated nearly as much as he should have. Could be out of interest or just lacking adequate motivation. In any case, I am not impressed with Franco's directorial work. He is still much better as an actor. As a director he has made silly mistakes and unforgivable editorial choices, which do effect the entire movie's atmosphere and how well the story is being delivered to the viewers. As it stands now, the movie lacks emotion, dynamic and empathy for the story or the characters.The second fail point for this movie is its casting - Almost the entire cast of the main characters appear to be far from being motivated, and this has lead to a display of some of the most mediocre acting performances of 2016. The only exception to the rule is Vincent D'Onofrio, who is playing London, and even in his case, just barely. I find just about everything disappointing in this film, cinematography certainly isn't doing any justice to it either, and this could be possibly because the sets aren't in any way convincing that this is early 1930's, the camera angles are to put it mildly, unconventional, there are close shots, when the scene would have rather called for medium or even long shots and then there are long shots in place of close shots. In some places the seriously weird cutting disrupts even viewers ability to follow the story, as the cuts don't make any sense. The third low point is the soundtrack, which doesn't fit the movie, or the time-line, when the movie is supposedly happening.Finally... Even with all the shortcomings in this movie, it is still watchable and even enjoyable (with strong reservations), but don't expect a clear and concise masterpiece. It works also much better for those people who haven't read Steinbeck's novel, but fails to convince most of the film scholars and academics, who will easily spot the many flaws in this production.
