The Butler

This movie is pure Oscar bait.  The cast has six Oscar winners and one person who's been nominated.  It deals with social issues from a left-wing point of view without pushing into the realm of controversy.  It's "inspired by a true story."  Unlike when director Lee Daniels' film Precious was nominated several years ago, 2013 was a pretty good year for movies and The Butler wasn't nominated for anything.  This is pretty common with films that feel like they were made explicitly to get attention from the Academy.  For the most part, Oscar bait movies are mediocre and largely forgettable.  However, The Butler (which will probably be largely forgotten) is actually pretty dang good.

It is the story of Cecil Gaines, a black man who worked as a butler in the White House for decades.  That's pretty much where the true story part stops and the "inspired by" starts.  The rest of the movie is a Forrest Gump-esque journey through civil rights history. 

The Butler is a fairly generic film bolstered by an all-star cast.  Not a single actor seems to be giving less than 100 percent.  In fact, some of the performances are stellar.  David Oyelowo as Gaines' eldest son threatens to steal the whole movie (some of that is because his character is the one who is actually involved in civil rights activism).  But it's Oprah Winfrey who gives the strongest performance of the film.  Her character has the best arc and the widest range of emotion and Winfrey rises to the occasion.  Couple this with her heart-breaking role in The Color Purple and you can see that Oprah is an actress of incredible skill.  Maybe now that she's done with her talk show, she'll start taking more film roles.

I'm a sucker for civil rights movies.  When I watch a war movie, regardless of the war, I can understand the motivations and cause of the fighting even if I don't agree with it.  When it comes to America's struggles with racial equality, I absolutely do not understand it at all.  Not only does bigotry and segregation make no sense to me, but how recent the civil rights movement was in our history is baffling.  As such, I find this subject matter captivating.  It's that strong subject matter and history that makes this movie good.  Cecil Gaines is just a framework on which to hang America's shame and it's progress.

The Butler is definitely worth your time.  It's fast paced and despite its subject, never takes itself too seriously.  There's plenty of comic beats to help keep the viewer from getting too bummed out.  Despite its PG-13 rating, I think it would be an appropriate movie for kids slightly under 13 and would serve as a sort of civil rights Cliff Notes.  

7 out of 10