I found the first 90 minutes of this film to be very interesting, even though a few parts of it were ridiculous (i.e.. Philip Seymour Hoffman's character). The last 60 minutes were distasteful and I began to lose interest in the film. The last hour lasted forever, it seemed.<br /><br />The movie is nicely acted and I can see why Rene Zellweger won an Academy Award since her character was so interesting. The movie also is beautifully filmed and the story is an emotional one. However, I found the message to be a bad one: not surprising these days in Hollywood. In this story, "Inman" (Jude Law) deserts the Confederate Army during the Civil War. His reason: his girlfriend misses him and wants him home. He's also getting disillusioned with war. (Can you imagine if every soldier who was in a similar boat deserted the army in the two world wars??!)<br /><br />Yet, in this film of course, all of that is perfectly acceptable. Then again, what Liberal filmmaker has ever had a nice thing to say about the U.S. military?? To add to their left-wing slant, they portray a vigilante-like posse going after deserters as cold-blooded sick killers. Well, in the world of films, as we know: good is portrayed as bad and bad is good.....and only Liberals would portray deserters as heroes.