STORY OF SLAVE TRADE ABOLITION IS NOT 'AMAZING' ENOUGH.

Byline: Bob Strauss

Film Critic

'Amazing Grace" is a multifaceted look at the life of William Wilberforce and his self-consuming efforts to end the slave trade in the British Empire.

Played by a very good Ioan Gruffudd ("Fantastic Four"), the 18th-century English politician is depicted as a dedicated crusader, but with enough shades and contradictions to make the saint human.

In fact, Wilberforce finds such transcendent joy in singing, nature and his evangelical faith that future prime minister William Pitt the Younger (Benedict Cumberbatch) can barely persuade his lifelong pal to join the cause and enter the wicked realm of politics.

When the film introduces Wilberforce later in his life, after setbacks and defeats aplenty, he is wracked with doubts and ailments, and addicted to the drugs he takes to escape the pain. Spent and depressed, his oratorical powers (not to mention his singing voice) choked, Wilberforce is virtually at death's door. It's only when he sets to narrating the details of his futile fight to Barbara Spooner (Romola Garai), a former follower who will become his wife, that the glimmer of hope rekindles.

Director Michael Apted ("Coal Miner's Daughter") and screenwriter Steven Knight ("Dirty Pretty Things") can't help letting a little sanctification take hold -- while also, sadly, making a charged historical subject seem tedious.

The flashbacks are rich in strategizing, debate and dirty tricks by both the abolitionists and their pro-slavery Parliamentary rivals. They're also thick with powder and wigs; real action is a precious commodity in "Amazing Grace," as if so much of its TV movie-level budget was spent on period re-creation that all they could pay for anyone to do when Apted cried "Action!" was talk. Of course, there is a lot to speak about regarding this great clash of moral idealism and economic pragmatism. But "Amazing Grace" would have benefitted from showing us more than a few stingy, surreal shots of the horrors of slavery instead of just solemnly -- and rather too delicately -- describing them.

In one scene, Wilberforce steers a boatload of well-off types alongside a slave ship so the gentlefolk can whiff the dreadful stench of human bondage. Probably effective live in the 1790s, but olfactory cinema technology hasn't advanced to the point where this emanates very effectively from the screen.

The abolitionists had more effective tricks up their puffy sleeves. The slave trade protest introduced, among other things, product boycotts and petition signing to popular democracy.

But even a fine force of veteran Brit actors has trouble bringing these stirring developments to life. Ciaran Hinds huffs and puffs as a hard-core slavery advocate; Michael Gambon does worldly cynic with a secret soul duty, and Rufus Sewell limns a remarkably even-tempered fanatic.

Albert Finney has a few powerful scenes as Wilberforce's spiritual mentor, reformed slave-ship captain turned guilt-ridden cleric John Newton. Newton also wrote the famous hymn that the film is named after. One would wish a movie about such an important issue would have similar lasting impact, but it's probably not to be.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

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AMAZING GRACE - Two and one half stars

(PG: racism, language, drug use)

Starring: Ioan Gruffudd, Romola Garai, Benedict Cumberbatch, Albert Finney, Michael Gambon, Ciaran Hinds.

Director: Michael Apted.

Running time: 1 hr. 58 min.

Playing: In wide release.

In a nutshell: Study of William Wilberforce's struggle to abolish slave trading in the British Empire is historically detailed and thought-provoking, but almost all talk in an underbudgeted, "Masterpiece Theatre" kind of way.