Synopsis
A complex tale of uneasy alliances along the Kansas/Missouri border during the Civil War, Ride with the Devil concerns Jack Bull Chiles (
Skeet Ulrich), a proud son of the South ready to fight for the Confederate cause after his father is killed by Union troops. Chiles's best friend, Jake Roedel (
Tobey Maguire), joins the Bushwhackers, a group of renegade Southerners aligned with the Confederate Army, even though his family supports the Union cause. The two young men, used to the slow pace and gracious lifestyle of the South's privileged class, are soon confronted with the chaos of battle. Their comrades include valiant leader Black John (
James Caviezel), paranoid madman Pitt (Jonathan Rhys Myers), Southern gentleman George (Simon Baker), and Daniel (
Jeffrey Wright), a slave from George's plantation. The Bushwhackers hide out in a barn near the home of Sue Lee (singer/songwriter/poet
Jewel, in her film debut), a pregnant widow whose husband died in battle three weeks after their marriage. Roedel and Sue Lee begin a chaste romance, but it remains to be seen if the war will permit them to stay together. Adapted from the novel Woe to Live On by Daniel Woodrell, Ride with the Devil was directed by
Ang Lee, whose previous project was a very different look at America's past, the 1970s domestic drama
The Ice Storm (1997). ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide