If you are a historian and you hear the term 40 Acres (2024), then mentally you might follow it with “and a mule.”  The film that I am reviewing today does not do that, and there are reasons for this, as we shall see.  What it does do is somewhat lean into the historical significance of those words.  After the American Civil War, African Americans freed from slavery were offered what ultimately became a largely unfulfilled promise of forty acres and a mule.  Some received the land grant, the animal being used for farming purposes.  By and large, what was set up was a sharecropping system where the formerly enslaved had to labor essentially as they always had for little or no wage.  The produce of their land was their rent, and if they did not meet quotas, they could be summarily dispossessed of their livelihood.  Some managed to grow a little extra to get ahead, but mostly the system was designed to keep an entire population in the South in a lower socio-economic state.  An unintended consequence of this scheme was to create an insular African American culture in that part of the country with its own culture, politics, and even religion.  Many of these themes are on display in today’s movie.  It gets a little bloody, but it asks important questions if you can handle some violence.

There is a lot of violence that is spoken of in a prologue to 40 Acres.  Fourteen years prior to these events, a global fungus had wiped out ninety-eight percent of the world’s animals.  What followed was a pandemic then civil war of similar geographical proportions.  As a result, the world’s farm land has become a precious resource.  Those who own them are under constant attack from roving bands of cannibals who seek the reap the rewards, and flesh, of other people’s labors.  The film begins with one such attack on the Freeman farm.  It is quickly evident that this group of agriculturalists are well prepared for such an incident.  They easily fend off the raiders, mercilessly killing all of them, and returning to their usual routine just as easily.  If you know anything about this way of life, then you can envision the montage that proceeds establishing the litany of chores.  They are led by a United States Army veteran named Hailey Freeman (Danielle Deadwyler), who is a no-nonsense taskmaster.  She is also mother to Emanuel “Manny” Freeman (Kataem O’Connor).  Manny is as committed to keeping everything working in its proper order as the rest, but he is also a young man coming of age.  As such, he does things sometimes that are not sanctioned by the family.  An example of this can be seen when he is sent to the trading depot, which is a place where local farmers can barter without having to come into contact with one another.  The trip there goes without a problem, but on the way back, he stops for a swim.  Part of his reason for doing so is because the river in which he bathes is also frequented by Dawn (Milcania Diaz-Rojas).  Curious about her, he follows her to a nearby settlement, noting the presence of armed men in the area.  Because he had taken a little extra time during this run, for the next planned venture to the depot, he is accompanied by his step-father, the first nations member Galen (Michael Greyeyes), and his younger half-sister, Danis Freeman (Jaeda LeBlanc).  This, too, is business as usual until they find a set of bodies suspended from the ceiling.  There then appears a group of armed men who try to convince the Freemans of their good intentions, but are shot and killed after they are revealed to be with the cannibals.  Unfortunately, one of these would-be assailants does not die, and revives to seriously wound Danis.  They are able to get the girl back to the Freeman farm, but it means that they are shorthanded while she recovers.  This is bad because rumors have been coming from the nearby Augusta spread of increased cannibal activity.  It is Hailey who operates the radio, and when she no longer hears from her good friend, Augusta Taylor (Elizabeth Saunders), Hailey begins to worry.  Already on high alert, Manny is patrolling their fence line when he spots an injured woman running through the woods.  It turns out to be Dawn.  Without telling his parents, he brings her to their barn.  Though she is suspicious at first, a rapport begins to build between them.  The big revelation comes when she lets on that Augusta is her aunt.  This is about the time that Hailey discovers the presence of a stranger on her farm.  She is about to murder Dawn when the newcomer confesses her connection to Augusta.  During the chaos, Manny goes down to the radio and tries to raise the Augusta farm on Dawn’s behalf.  When he claims he had gotten some kind of response, he takes Dawn and they speed in that direction.  To Hailey, it is an obvious trap, but she goes after her son anyway.  At the same time, the Freeman farm is once more attacked by an even larger set of cannibals.  At Augusta’s place, Hailey is captured and is about to be eaten.  Hailey and Augusta have one last conversation that gets Hailey to soften her stance on helping outsiders.  It is Dawn and Manny who find the survivors and then rescue Hailey.  They then return to their own land, which is being defended by Galen and Raine Freeman (Leenah Robinson), the eldest daughter.  The long and short of this is that all those seeking their harm are dispatched, though Galen and Hailey receive some pretty significant injuries in the process.  Nonetheless, they are able to celebrate a meal at the end as a sign of their growing family.

It is strange to use the word “celebrate” in connection with 40 Acres, but I do not know how else to describe the tenor of the meal at the end.  It is a mixed group of people who have fought hard to be able to enjoy the fruit of their labor.  That is more literal, but it is also a Biblical characterization.  What is interesting about Hailey is that she is a preacher’s daughter, Felix Freeman (Tyrone Benskin), but does not believe in God.  Instead, she makes an idol of her family, believing they are all she needs to survive.  For this reason, she mistrusts everyone outside of their circle, and seems too quick to lose her patience even with them.  It is Manny who reminds her that we cannot survive without other people.  This is also a Christian idea.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that community is essential to living a full life.  This is true irrespective of your stance on God.  One might say that the Freemans are a community onto themselves.  This is how Hailey sees them.  However, she is also divorced from any connection to God that might give that meaning.  Part of her reason for her loss of Faith is because of what had happened with her father.  On the same night she had first met Augusta, who had helped the stranded Hailey with a ride home, they find Felix and their rest of their original community dead, killed at the hands of raiders.  Further, Hailey cites the number of heinous acts done in the name of God, who supposedly would not let such bad things happen.  It is Augusta who has one of the more brilliant responses to this supposition that I have heard in a movie.  She cautions to not “confuse what’s done in the name of God with God.”  Over the centuries, there have a number of atrocities done by people claiming to represent God.  With the benefit of hindsight, we can look back and judge them correctly.  In the moment, you end up making decisions like Hailey, cutting oneself off from the world.  She can be commended for being self-sufficient, but people are worth trusting.

I hope that by now you have come to trust The Legionnaire, even before reading this review of 40 Acres.  I do not like to recommend violent movies, but this one is not completely without a point.  If you can handle some blood, there might be some good lessons for you here.