“The Woman King” (MA) ***

GINA Prince-Bythewood’s film set in the year 1823 impresses rather than entertains. Its chief virtue, which is also its chief burden, is that it tries, with some success, to tell a fictionalised true story.

Dana Stevens’ screenplay for “The Woman King”, from a story by Maria Bello, is the foundation of this intensely vigorous action movie built around a political power struggle that still had far to go (the US fought a long civil war over slavery some four decades after this film’s events, the residues of which still permeate parts of the land of the free and the home of the brave).

In 1823, the western country of Dahomey (now Benin) was one of the most powerful states in Africa. When Nawi (Thuso Mbedu) refuses a marriage proposal, her father gifts her to King Ghezo (John Boyega). There, she joins the Agojie; an all-female warrior unit led by Nanisca (Viola Davis) who in time will become the Woman King who sits beside Ghezo. Izogie (Lashana Lynch) and Amenza (Sheila Atim) train Nawi in soldiering as the Agojie people prepare for war with neighbouring tribes over their belief that selling their people into slavery is wrong. 

A decade later, the Slave Abolition Trade Act 1833 made the slave trade illegal for British citizens throughout the world, a more sweeping prohibition than the Slave Trade Act 1807 that applied only in the British Isles. 

“The Woman King” runs for 131 minutes. Next year, its events will be two centuries old during which just about everything outside our bodies has changed a bit. 

Its handsome look in some way detracts from its visual impact (call it nitpicking if you like, but I found visual anachronisms pervading almost every frame; that’s just me). 

Watch it and be troubled by how it deals with its racial core (from a dramatic viewpoint, not its race or ethnicity). The message it delivers is powerful – with the right tools, an ant can take down an elephant. 

At all cinemas