One of the worst movies I've ever seen!!! Absolutely awful. Poor acting, poor story, there isn't one redeeming quality about this movie to recommend. Amistad is much better. Avoid this movie like the plague!

One of the worst movies I've seen this year. Everything about the film screams "AMATEUR". For a movie set in the 1800's, everybody speaks like it's the 1990's. The acting, particularly the people playing the white slave masters, is horrible. After about an hour into this movie, I walked out. What a waste of time and effort. For a much better film on this subject, see Steven Spielberg's far superior "Amistad."

I didn't see this movie during its theatrical release but heard much about it and now I've been able to screen it on video.

Although obviously produced on a low budget - which actually adds to the simple honesty of the presentation -- it is one of the most searing filmed accounts of the greatest human tragedy ever perpetrated. Namely slavery.

If you want a Hollywood stereotypical version of racial injustice this is not for you. "Amistad" which also purported to be about an uprising on a slave ship was nothing more than a courtroom drama in the Perry Mason style with angry looking African Americans and the mandatory sympathetic white man.

In "Ill Gotten Gains" you feel the real shame and degredation endured by the captives. And the perverse power enjoyed by the captors.

The movie while not a box office success -- how could it be through reopening this, our nation's most shameful secret -- should be seen by youngsters of all races to get a truthful, unblemished and authentic account of this inglorious stain in our history books.