Tuchergson Truly the worst movie I've ever seen in a theater

Dorathen Better Late Then Never

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Usamah Harvey The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

mudgeeraba I am not a student of the American Civil war but I am an individual who is respectful of this momentous War between the States and the terrible price that was paid by both sides.This documentary does not show any respect for this conflict and it seems to me that it is not an impartial view of the war and that there were many leaders who were not even mentioned, great people who had influence in this conflict.For me the definitive record of the American Civil War is the books by the great Shelby Foote and Ken Burns outstanding series.In the end I saw nothing here that would indicate that the producers knew nothing about the subject they had produced.

mcintiretracey I have been a volunteer living historian at Antietam National Battlefield for over 5 years. I personally know most of the historians that were interviewed for the Antietam episode. Their segments are great. The rest of the production is a historical disgrace. Others have gone into detail about the many inaccuracies, so I won't cover those in this review. What I will say is that those inaccuracies are not the result of a low budget, but rather laziness or downright willful ignorance. It doesn't cost money to look at period photos and drill manuals on the Internet and see what your soldiers should look like and how they should handle a rifle and a cannon. The lack of research for the battle scenes in this production is a disgrace and it is a slap in the face to the historians that were interviewed and to the soldiers who fought and died at Antietam. Shame on you, AHC. You are disrespecting the American Heroes you claim to care so much about.

awl7788 I'm no historian, but I love history and especially civil war history. My love of civil war history stems from my relation to Gen. "Stonewall" Jackson. I have visited many battlefields at Gettysburg, Chickamauga, Lookout Mt., Signal Mt., Shilo, etc... and have attended a few reenactments and have been to MANY museums about the war featuring uniforms and guns. Like the other reviews ( which might be the same person because the main complaint was uniform inaccuracies. The uniforms are bad, yes, the acting really bad, yes... My expectations weren't extremely high, though, because it is very low budget. My main complaint is how unbelievably inaccurate and misconstrued the actual history is. I could lay all of them out from the first 20 minutes, but you wouldn't want to read all of them. One example - this documentary makes it seem as if the southern states had seceded out of fear of Abe abolishing slavery! Not only was abolishing slavery among the first things the confederacy was going to do after the war, but Abe wanted to send every African American to Panama! You've got to show every side of the secession because non of it is cut and dry. How would you like to be taxed "exporting" goods to your own country because you lived and worked in the south? Study up on state inequalities as the country grew to understand more fully what was going on. Slavery was NOT an issue at the beginning of the war, but was turned into THE cause the union soldiers were given to boost morale because they were being slaughtered and were giving up! The confederate soldiers nor their generals were villains, but land owners protecting their property and families. This documentary implies the south was going to invade the north, but Abe from the beginning wanted to quickly squash, through war, the rebelling states and restore the union by force. General Lee was even visited personally by Abe and was asked to lead the army of the union, but Lee declined saying he never thought his country would invade itself and his duty was to his home and his state- not because he wanted to save the institution of slavery. The civil war is very complicated and not cut and dry like this documentary portrays. In fact, the south had blacks fighting in their ranks. I have an adopted black brother who is even more a history buff than I and has even participated in reenactments as a confederate. When he arrived the historians were beside themselves telling him his knowledge of the war exceeded some of their peers who some just didn't know, but even those who deliberately leave those details out because it taints the history they want to show. He even dressed as a confederate to tour Gettysburg and was met with tons of compliments from experts and fellow reenactment participants. I really wanted to enjoy this show because I'm always trying to watch civil war documentaries when they're available. Here's my suggestion. If you want to learn about our civil war, go on a trip and visit museums and battlefields when you can. If you can't, watch the most historically accurate films ever made in Gettysburg and Gods and Generals. The books these films are based on are even better. If you read this far into this review, thanks. My parting words- visit the sites as the truth is preserved in most cases and don't watch this show.

krizzby7 It is understood that the American Civil War was a series of complex and pressing events that can cause one to devote their life to researching and studying, yet never come closer to fully understanding it. That in mind no series, how well funded or produced, could ever do the war true justice in both scope and scale or in accurately portraying the men who fought it. However most good studios and projects will do as much research as possible to ensure their information and their portrayal of the war is as accurate as possible America Heroes Channel and Cream Productions do not know what research is.  The focus of my scorn comes from the complete and utter lack of authentic recreations of the war. While their narrative may contain some positive points and usefully intriguing information, the show would have done so much better with a slide show of period photographs much in the vein of Ken Burns the Civil War What this company put to film resembles nothing of the American Civil War.  It is outright a travesty. I could fill this very page with more criticisms to the inaccuracies seen in just the first episode and their 360 shoot combined. There are more details wrong than ever right.  The old phrase the Devils in the Details was meant for this. Many of you would ask "why does it matter if their uniforms or accurate, it looked cool!" While having museum grade quality uniforms is exciting and accurate it is also very expensive and understandably so when film companies look for a step below.  The uniforms here are not a step below, they are floors. The confederate uniforms for one resemble NOTHING ever worn by a Southern soldier. They are fictions. The Federal soldiers headware is again so disappointing as to resemble a block than a kepi or forage cap.  As someone who has worked in the Historical film industry and had to work with very low budget pictures, it is still obtainable for us to have uniforms that resemble at the least what the real Mccoy did. The tactics are abysmal. They actually just lack tactics .  The entire film resembles a bunch of men playing paintball in the woods.  This production would have you believe the soldiers of the American Civil War ran around the woods in small clusters hiding behind rocks and trees, then dashing off in a wild charge at the enemy.  False. It actually is a disservice. The American Civil War was known for its nearly static battle lines drawn out in brigade fashion that slugged it out within a few hundred yards.  And when they did close within a hundred yards the result was devastating. Having background extras to work with is difficult, again I know from personal experience.  But having an actual adviser on set makes all the difference. How can you make a dozen men look like 300 in a battle line?  Good film making. Good editing. A DP who knows how to shoot around their limitations. Clearly this production had none of those. Again to close, why does it matter? Why does it matter that we need authentic representation of uniforms, equipment and materials. Because this show pitched the idea of using recreation scenes of battle. They chose the medium.  Cream Productions and AHC could have picked talking heads and slide shows of original images with graphics of moving battle lines.  But they wanted to be edgy so they chose battle scenes.  So now they pay that price.  Look at the other reviews, the stars given.  We are all upset.  Cream Productions has been blocking users and deleting comments because of the flood of negative responses they've received.  This is our history, do not take it for granted and think you can deliver a cheap, researchless project.