Emancipation

At times powerful but often ponderous, this Will Smith vehicle unevenly mixes action/adventure, dramaturgy and war scenes in the based-on-true story of a runaway slave.

“Emancipation” consists of pieces of several different kinds of movies that, while individually effective, don’t really fit well together.

It’s a star vehicle for Will Smith as a runaway slave that mixes high-octane action/adventure, ponderous dramaturgy and war epic. One wishes Smith, director Antoine Fuqua (“Training Day”) and screenwriter William N. Collage had just picked one aesthetic and gone with it.

For most of the film it seems like a takeoff on “The Revenant,” with Peter (Smith) chased by a merciless slave hunter, Fassel (Ben Foster), though the swamps and forests of Louisiana. Peter and a few other slaves had overheard Confederate soldiers talking about the Emancipation Proclamation, and decided to flee to the Union forces in Baton Rouge to secure their freedom.

It’s engaging, harrowing stuff, as Peter’s body — already scarred and torn by the whips and pistol butts of the slave masters — is shredded by blades, bullets and animal teeth. Some of it can get a little over the top, in particular a battle with an alligator that could’ve jumped right out of a “Tarzan” movie.

Peter doesn’t pound his chest and howl, though I half expected him to.

But it’s hard not to be engrossed by Peter’s existential plight, not to mention Smith’s down-to-the-bone authentic performance. He nails the Haitian Creole accent, and isn’t afraid to invest in the character’s foundational religiosity, continually telling other slaves, “God loves you,” though we sense his true audience is himself.

The photography is magnificent, shot by Robert Richardson in a way that I initially thought was black-and-white. Actually, the film has been so desaturated that it merely appears without hue — with the notable exception of the color red, which shows up disturbingly vibrant as fire and blood.

Without giving too much away, the movie shifts to a completely different story in the last act as it moves to a gruesome battle sequence that resembles “Glory” by way of “1917.” The camera that had been following Peter so intimately in extreme close-ups switches to soaring crane footage, dolly shots and other tools from the epic movie bag of tricks.

All the while, Peter is focused on getting back to his family, from whom he’s been separated after being conscripted into the Confederate war effort. Charmaine Bingwa plays his wife, and manages to do a lot without a ton of screen time to flesh out the character. There are a few moony scenes where she and Peter seem to be communing spiritually during their separation, as if hearing the other’s voice on the wind, and it gets a little goofy.

Foster, one of the best character actors working today, is a fearsome presence as Fassel, who sees the hunt as his life’s calling. He lounges about the camp like a bird of prey, puffing his pipe and waiting for somebody to run off. He’s not overtly cruel — unlike the other slavers, whose jaws positively froth with racial animus, like the dogs Fassel employs to track slaves — but in a memorable soliloquy gives a glimpse into the dehumanizing mindset that fosters when one group of people keeps another in chains.

From a technical perspective, “Emancipation” is a marvel. It’s shot by masters of moving images and the production values are excellent, right down to the frayed cuffs of the men’s coats and the makeup effects to depict the various humiliations visited upon Peter’s body.

So why this odd mishmash of storytelling styles and subjects? It has to do with the historical basis for the movie, which I cannot reveal without spoiling its value. Suffice to say the filmmakers are plucking a tiny bit of actual history and then building an entire conjectural experience around it. In order to do that, the film has to hit certain narrative waypoints than an organic piece of storytelling would not lead to.

I think “Emancipation” would’ve been at its best just focusing on Peter’s journey, grueling both physically and spiritually, and his contest of wills with the relentless slave hunter. The great and powerful screenwriter William Goldman said the most important decision in telling a story is knowing where to start and where to end it; this one reaches its natural conclusion, and then starts a new one all over again.

After a limited theatrical run, “Emancipation” debuts on Apple TV+ Dec. 9.