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Copperhead
Copperhead is unlike any Civil War movie to date. It is a film of the war at home—of a family ripped apart by war. A story of the violent passions and burning feuds that set ablaze the homefront during the Civil War, Copperhead the movie is also a timeless and deeply moving examination of the price of dissent, the place of the individual amidst the hysteria of wartime, and the awful cost of war—a cost measured not in dollars but in fractured families, broken loves, and men dead before their time.
9 May 1966, Amherst, Nova Scotia, Canada
17 September 1987
18 August 1961, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
28 December 1987, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
21 September 1963, Glasgow, Scotland, UK
July 19, 2013
Its budgetary limitations show. Many scenes could have used additional takes to polish the performances, and the often-poor sound recording is a shortcoming, particularly with stylized period dialogue. The leads show surprisingly little range.
July 16, 2013
Sluggish drama ... defines this morality lesson about the unimpeachable virtue of loving thy neighbor.
July 24, 2013
I wish "Copperhead" were better, because it tells a story we haven't seen before, and creates a world that films have rarely shown us.
April 14, 2014
There's a good story to be told somewhere in here, but they just couldn't get at it, choosing to stretch out and suffocate what good material they had, resulting in a bland and tedious tale that would fail to engage even the most avid history buff.
July 18, 2013
Though the tale, based on a novel by Harold Frederic, remains relevant to our time, the film is too self-conscious and tedious for the message it delivers.
November 04, 2013
As both politics and entertainment, it's lacking.
July 16, 2013
Less like a peering examination of the turbulent political environment than a reenactment of a Ken Burns documentary-or a museum tour.
July 19, 2013
For this audience, Ron Maxwell's film will prove entertaining and though-provoking, at the very least. For the rest, it is unlikely to provide much dramatic sustenance.
July 17, 2013
If every war has more than one side, this story of one man who dares to stand against the tide of history has a contemporary relevance that remains uncontested.
July 19, 2013
A work every bit as turgid and baldly sentimental as the centerpiece lecture at a convention of historical reenactors.
April 28, 2014
Maxwell and Kauffman merit praise for acknowledging historical complexity, but the film's moral and aesthetic limitations keep Copperhead from entering this realm.
July 18, 2013
So much taste and intelligence went into these finely wrought costumes, props and sets in order to tell a story of such tedium.

