Before Taiwanese director Ang Lee announced this as his sixth helming project, he'd already built up an impressive body of work which had included the critically adored Sense and Sensibility and The Ice Storm.

An action-packed American Civil War western therefore came as a bit of a shock at the time and sounded about as far removed from an Ang Lee film as you could have possibly imagined (before The Hulk came along that is).
The director therefore seemed to be staring down a musket barrel with critics everywhere poised to pull the trigger. But it was Lee who came out with all guns blazing to deliver a minor classic, an epic tale of love, war, hatred and friendship which scores in every department. An elegant yet brutal, majestic yet wretched depiction of the savage conflict which pitted the Union Yankee Jayhawkers against the Confederate Southern Bushwackers.

Based on the novel Woe to Live On, the main focus of the story is the friendship between Jake Roedel (Tobey Maguire) and Jack Bull Chiles (Skeet Ulrich), teenagers who both join the Confederate guerilla cause and become men overnight, murdering Union scouting parties and patrolling the dense Southern woodlands on the Missouri/Kansas border in a desperate attempt to protect their land and people.

Steering clear of the main battles, Lee keeps his film firmly on the periphery, the masterfully staged fight scenes only once straying into a full-scale battle, although the director does re-enact the infamous massacre at Lawrence, Kansas, in truly brutal fashion.

As much about internal conflicts as it is about the war being fought on the ground, the film's other main players are the gentlemanly George Clyde (Simon Baker), and his loyal former slave Daniel Hoult (Jeffrey Wright), a black man who perversely sides with the South.

They, together with Chiles and Roedel, shack up in a bunker during one harsh winter, a makeshift shelter built on the property of a pro-Confederate family. Here they meet war widow Sue Lee (Jewel making her acting debut), a compassionate woman who makes a big impression on both Maguire and Ulrich, before the time comes for the men to return to the battleground.
As big on sweeping cinematography as it is on beards, stubble and horses, Lee's film is a hugely impressive depiction of life in the Civil War trenches, an epic in every sense of the word which was all the more effective upon its initial release for avoiding big name stars and showcasing the talents of a clutch of (at the time) promising young actors.

Renowned for his acute attention to microscopic dramatic detail, Lee unsurprisingly paints a vivid and enthralling picture of 1860s guerilla Civil warfare. This is enhanced, not only by scrupulous attention to historical accuracy, but also by the strong bond between the main players, who endured three weeks of "boot camp" and boned up on required reading to prepare for the movie.

A few issues are raised and perhaps underdeveloped (notably Maguire's running feud with the crazed Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Wright's decision to fight alongside his former master) but any elaboration of these would have pushed the already lengthy running time even further towards the three hour mark.
Then again, some time could easily have been trimmed from the winter break spent in that shack in the woods, when the very capable Jewel makes her first appearance. But these are minor quibbles, because Ride With the Devil is quite simply an awesome piece of film-making.

David Lichtneker