Civil Actions

By RICHARD CORLISS

The fighting men of the Civil War, whether Blue or Gray, are recalled with sympathy, poignancy. They left their homes to fight in someone else's backyard for freedom or tradition. The truth, though, may be closer to the blind, bloody chaos depicted in Ang Lee's severe, handsomely rendered Ride with the Devil. In Border states like Missouri, a young man was at war not only with his brother but with his own best instincts as well.

Two Missouri bushwhackers, Jake Roedel (watchful Tobey Maguire) and Jack Bull Chiles (Skeet Ulrich, parading what may be star quality or merely attitude), start out with a few ideals--war's first casualty. They also serially entertain the young widow Sue Lee (Jewel, the singer). They are idiot savants at making war--without flair or even instinct but with an awful proficiency. At making love they are just idiots. They haven't had the example of the movies or even mush literature to teach them courtship. They hide their feelings as clumsily as they express them. "So, do you want to marry me?" asks Sue. Jake replies, "No, not too bad." And for a moment we see the sweet awkwardness Lee induced in Sense and Sensibility.

You are welcome to debate the violence and the presentation of a Southern black (Jeffrey Wright, impeccably conflicted) fighting for the flag of slavery. But for all the period dressings, this could be a deadpan study of why kids in Sarajevo, Belfast or South Central pick up guns and start spraying the street. And for all the carnage, Lee's tone is contemplative. He pines for those quiet moments when a wounded man can sit holding a baby, the newborn sucking on the man's nubbin of a blasted-off finger.

--By Richard Corliss