Ride with the Devil
Ride with the Devil is a 1999 American Revisionist Western film directed by Ang Lee and starring Tobey Maguire, Skeet Ulrich, Jeffrey Wright, and Jewel in her feature film debut. Based on the novel Woe to Live On, by Daniel Woodrell, the film, set during the American Civil War, follows a group of men who join the First Missouri Irregulars, also known as the Bushwhackers—guerrilla units loyal to pro-Confederacy units of the state—and their war against Northern Jayhawkers allied with the Union army. Simon Baker, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Jonathan Brandis, Jim Caviezel, Mark Ruffalo, and Celia Weston are featured in supporting performances.
Plot
Jake Roedel and Jack Bull Chiles are friends in Missouri when the Civil War breaks out. Roedel is the American-assimilated son of a German immigrant who suffers from sporadic anti-German suspicion from other Southerners (as the German population in the state was largely sympathetic to the Union) while Chiles is the son of planter Asa Chiles.
More details
| author | James Schamus |
|---|---|
| contentLocation | Missouri |
| director | Ang Lee |
| editor | Tim Squyres |
| events | slavery in the United States |
| genre | western |
| keywords | 5th kansas cavalry regiment american civil war amputate amputation anti-german sentiment anti-german suspicion bought holt his freedom california chicory civil war confederate government of missouri drink family home fight freedman gangrene guard guerrilla warfare injured jayhawkers kentucky kill lawrence kansas learn manumission missouri in the american civil war new family on the run outlaw pressure him to marry shotgun wedding survive texas turn union army union soldier union troops william quantrill wound |
| musicBy | Mychael Danna |
| producer | Robert F. Colesberry Ted Hope |
| productionCompany | Good Machine |
| publisher | Focus Features |
| recordedAt | Kansas |
| theme | epic northern race and ethnicity war |