My opinion is that Andersonville is the best Civil War movie ever made, period. As a former Civil War reenactor, I'm not going to sit here and nitpick at all the "mistakes." Were there mistakes? Sure. The timeline was a little fuzzy for one. But that does not detract from the power of this movie. The guards were not well fed regulars either, but so what? You don't have to take a test after watching this movie!
I think the REAL factor in Andersonville being such a great production was the fact that you had no real "name" people involved. Fredric Forrest may have been the biggest name in the film and is a career role actor - but WHAT an actor! These guys busted their balls for this film and it really shows. I heard one reenactor complain that the characters seemed "cartoonish," and I don't buy it. I bet he was refering to Jan Triska who played Wirz. Well, read up on Wirz. I think they got it pretty close.
Forgive me, my reenacting brethern, but alhough Gettysburg was a tolerable film (I got to be an extra in that) and Gods and Generals was a disaster, the problem with these productions was the fact that they relied way too heavily on reenactors. Reenactors are NOT actors! They were used most effectively in Glory, not so well in Gettysburg, and Gods and Generals? Don't want to even go there. Andersonville followed Glory's success formula in using reenactors as background with small parts filled in by them (my buddy Martin Leibschner playing the banjo in the Raider camp was a good use of the talent reenactors can bring to film).
Frankenheimer must be given a lot of credit, as should the writer. The script did get a little cheesy here and there, but not enough again to trash the overall production. Jarrod Emick (sp?) as Josiah Day did a nice job, but until that point he had been a stage actor mostly, and his voice inflections projected that. Still, he did a great job. Peter Murnik as Limber Jim added that "mystery character" to the film well (as the real Limber Jim who was at Andersonville is a mystery to history). Again, I can't think of one lame performance by any of the key actors here. They put 110% into the job and I commend them for it. And whoever was involved in the set design was on the ball too. To try and recreate that place was no small task.
I remember a reenactor bitching because for the "filling" of the stockade for the wide shots, they had to use women and even cardboard figures. Big frekin deal! When they are dots on the screen, did it REALLY matter?
I can't see this movie being topped in terms of a Civil War period piece. Hollywierd is always bent on turning just about every period piece into some type of romance for the younger target audience. Andersonville is certainly a refreshing change of pace to that drill.
