As someone who was born and bred a Virginian, and as a history and Civil War buff, I thoroughly enjoyed Gods and Generals. Obviously, I'm biased toward a film like this. It was told from the Confederate perspective, which is a nice change from typical Civil War films, but had plenty of sub plots on the Union side as well. The setting was mostly in the Fredericksburg and Manassas area, and the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.

Specifically, the film featured great Virginians such as Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and A.P. Hill, although it centered around Lee and Jackson. (Mostly Jackson) Stephen Lang and Robert Duvall were perfectly cast as Jackson and Lee. Jeff Daniels was brought in to reprise his role as the Union Lt. Colonel Chamberlain, and did a magnificent job. I thought the film properly portrayed the Southern point of view, and how slavery began to become an issue on both sides. Too many of today's historians revisionists deliberately try to convey that the Union was fighting to abolish slavery, and that Confederates were fighting to preserve it. It is this ignorance and deliberate revisionism that plague southern history, and whitewash the accomplishments of the men who fought and died during the war.

While the film was over 3 1/2 hours, it had an intermission in just the right place, and the pace seemed to move rather quickly. Still, the IMDb reports that it is getting it's share of negative reviews. In the films defense, I'd like to point out that critics love drivel like Titanic, and hate anything as it relates to history. Especially when the facts fly in the face of the liberalism that the NY Times and LA Times love to disseminate.

You may be interested in the following: Virginia Center for Civil War Studies; Unofficial Gods and Generals Home Page; Books by James I. Robertson (Historical Consultant for Gods and Generals, Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech, Founder of Virginia Center for Civil War Studies, and my former professor)