Rosewood (1997)

85% of critics liked it
(48 reviews)
81% of users liked it
(7,051 ratings)

Rosewood is the true story of an almost unknown incident in a small Florida town, (fictionalized, but faithful to the known facts, as documented in a 1994 report by the Florida Legislature). The town was inhabited almost entirely by quiet, "middle-class" African- Americans (most of them home and… More Rosewood is the true story of an almost unknown incident in a small Florida town, (fictionalized, but faithful to the known facts, as documented in a 1994 report by the Florida Legislature). The town was inhabited almost entirely by quiet, "middle-class" African- Americans (most of them home and land owners and better off than average at the time.) On New Year's day, 1923, the town was wiped off the face of the earth by angry whites from a neighboring community. Based on palpably false testimony by a single white woman against one "Black" stranger, many of the men of Rosewood were hunted down and lynched, or shot, or burned. The rest of the town's residents fled into the swamps and never returned. At the time, official reports stated that two to six people from the black community were slain. Neither the perpetrators nor the victims spoke of the incident again, which was promptly forgotten until 1983 when a reporter stumbled across the old story and began investigating. Interviews with surviving victims indicated that the previous reports were wrong; in reality, between 70 and 250 people were killed in Rosewood during the four-day attack.The film is a human story, about human envy, greed and lust, about the totally insane psychology of a mob, but also about the courage and decency of common folks facing an unbelievable onslaught of evil. The courage of the black residents is self evident, and the decency on the part of a few white neighbors is reluctant, until they realize that they can't live with themselves if they don't help the woman and children to escape. The most notable black heroes are Sylvester (Don Cheadle) -- a music teacher and the best-educated man in town -- and Mann (Ving Rhames) -- a stranger on horseback with Samson-like strength who becomes the focus of white hatred and black resistance. The penny-pinching, adulterous town grocer John Wright (John Voight), one of the few white residents, also plays a key role in saving lives, but before he does, he must resolve painful racial issues and make a difficult personal choice. Eventually, though, he sees enough of the mob's evil to know what he must do, and with the help of the reluctant owner-operators of the Gainesville railway, he does it. John Singleton's powerful epic film does not present a "comfortable" view of the circumstances of this grim, little-known page from American history. ~ Michael P. Rogers, Rovi

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Rating, Runtime: R, 2 hr. 20 min.
Directed By: John Singleton
Written By: Gregory Poirier
Genres: Drama, Action & Adventure

In Theaters: Feb 21, 1997 Wide
On DVD: Jul 3, 2001
Studio: Warner Home Video

Critic Reviews

Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine
Rhames' gravity and grace, Voight's pinched anguish as he wills himself to do right, the moving work of actors like Don Cheadle and Esther Rolle do much to redeem this film for human if not historical reality.
Todd McCarthy, Variety
Although it increasingly succumbs to a tendency toward conventional movie heroics, John Singleton's fourth film tells a story of rare interest and tragedy...
Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
The need to bear witness against atrocity, to testify that something wicked this way came, is the powerful drive that animates Rosewood, the story of an American tragedy so horrific no one talked about it for more than half a century.
Janet Maslin, New York Times
Neither the film's smug white bigots nor its uniformly noble blacks are well served by such oversimplification.
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
If the movie were simply the story of this event, it would be no more than a sad record. What makes it more is the way it shows how racism breeds and feeds, and is taught by father to son.
James Berardinelli, ReelViews
An epic that stands alone in the latter weeks of a dismal movie winter.
Maitland McDonagh, TV Guide's Movie Guide
The intentions are unassailable: to dramatize a forgotten injustice and sear it into contemporary memory so it's never allowed to happen again. But the movie is long and didactic, undermined by the faintly pious air of an educational slide show.
Carol Cling, Las Vegas Review-Journal
Stirring story, indifferently realized.
Robin Clifford, Reeling Reviews
John Singleton, with Rosewood, proves himself to be a capable and talented director, bringing to life a piece of violent American history that some would have preferred left unremembered.
Scott Weinberg, eFilmCritic.com
Gripping and pretty darn tense historical drama.
Philip Martin, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
...the more the body count mounts, the more cartoonish the movie seems, and the less we care.
Judith Egerton, Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY)
A charged, wrenching drama about one of the most shameful events in American history.
Dragan Antulov, rec.arts.movies.reviews
Instead of simply stating that the racism is bad, Singleton tries to explain it through characters, which are multidimensional and believable, regardless of their race.
Brian Mckay, eFilmCritic.com
Decent effort, but couldn't decide if it wanted to be a historical drama or an action flick.
Dan Lybarger, Lawrence Journal-World
A harrowing look at a shameful incident that one wishes could be dismessed as fiction.
Margaret A. McGurk, Cincinnati Enquirer
There are any number of good reasons to see the historical drama Rosewood, but this is the one to remember: Ving Rhames.

Read all 16 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

Curtis L

Look! as mobs of scary southerners hang black people for no reason. Watch! as Jon Voight shows his scary old man butt. See! as Ving Rhames kicks craker ass and un-hangs himself with his ridiculously strong body. Whitness! as Don Cheadle shamelessly decoys himself with a retarded… More
Look! as mobs of scary southerners hang black people for no reason. Watch! as Jon Voight shows his scary old man butt. See! as Ving Rhames kicks craker ass and un-hangs himself with his ridiculously strong body. Whitness! as Don Cheadle shamelessly decoys himself with a retarded kid who gets burned and riddled with bullets. Experience! aunt Jemimah tell stories of the old slave days. All this and more in Rosewood.
Michael S

Powerfull; and unfairly forgotten/underrated.
Stephen E

To this day racism is a heated and frequently-discussed topic, even though the term has come to mean something entirely different today than it did back then. John Singleton's "Rosewood" is yet another film that shows us the cruel acts of violence that the black… More
To this day racism is a heated and frequently-discussed topic, even though the term has come to mean something entirely different today than it did back then. John Singleton's "Rosewood" is yet another film that shows us the cruel acts of violence that the black community endured in the past, fueling the hatred for bigotry even more. A lot of the brutality that occurs onscreen is hard to stomach, not because it is graphic or bloody in nature (though it sometimes is), but because it is unreasonable, uncalled for, and unjustified. The white landowners who engage in the murdering and lynching of blacks have no real reason to do what they're doing. They don't see the harm in killing a black person, have no real evidence for doing so, and in the end, do not pay for their crimes. Nothing in the form of punishment ever comes their way. Life continues for them like nothing happened. Yet "Rosewood" is somehow cathartic and ends on a slightly positive note. Hell, it sort of needs to. Films like this need a happy ending, no matter how unrealistic it is. We need to feel like everything is okay, even though something like the Rosewood massacre happened. That's the magic of cinema.
Leo L

Great movie!