Wonderful character development!

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

In the early 2000s, a cease fire was declared between two warring factions in Sudan (the Arab Muslims in the north and the non-Arabs in the south), effectively bringing to an end the bloody civil war that had ripped that nation apart for over two decades (though the peace treaty itself was not officially signed until 2005). Former Marine Captain Brian Steidle went to the country as part of a team sponsored by the African Union to help monitor the cease fire. However, while he was there, a new conflict broke out, this time in Darfur, the far western region of Sudan that is largely inhabited by tribal blacks. As soon as the cease fire was in place, militias and death squads, backed by the Arab government in Khartoum, began a well-coordinated and systematic campaign to brutally terrorize and slaughter the inhabitants of that region. Whole villages and refugee camps were wiped out, their people mowed down, burned alive or left to die of starvation, all for being black. Steidle - sans weapons and armed only with a still camera, a video recorder, a great deal of personal courage and a spirit of righteous indignation - spent much of that time traveling through the countryside compiling a photographic account of the atrocities. "The Devil Came on Horseback" is that account.With this work, filmmakers Ricki Stren and Anne Sundberg clearly hope to rouse the outside world from its lethargy regarding this tragedy. Steidle's heartbreaking and compelling eyewitness testimony to Man's-inhumanity-to-Man is placed in direct opposition to the lip-service platitudes and hollow assurances he receives from the fiddle-playing leaders in the Bush administration and the U.N. when he confronts them with the evidence. First, there is the resistance on the part of the world to declare that what was happening in Darfur is a "genocide" at all - then, after the admission, an intransigent refusal to step in and take any kind of action to halt the holocaust. Perhaps the most heartrending moments come from interviews with survivors living in refugee camps in neighboring Chad, and from reflective comments made by Steidle himself as he struggles with the enormity of what he's seen and experienced and battles against the frustrating reluctance on the part of those who could actually do something to ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING.After all the horrors it shows us, after all the inspiring images of one caring man making a difference in the world, the movie turns the spotlight directly onto the viewers, challenging them to take an active part in helping to end this human tragedy. Thus, the movie concludes with a list of websites and telephone numbers where all concerned people can go to find out more about what they themselves can do to have an impact. It's a challenge well worth taking up.

Don't get me wrong, I am all about assisting in Darfur, but having said that this documentary was shifting more towards propaganda than objective cinema. And perhaps that is what they wanted, my friend showed me this film and it was shockingly graphic. I personally enjoyed the part where Brian comes back to present this story and it is treated as nothing more than entertainment. It goes to show how things are perceived by the masses.This film seemed to dig too deeply into Brian the marine officer hero, and not enough into the sociological implications of what this occurring means to our world. I felt the camera was too often on Brian, while I know it is important to show him since he brought the photos back I wasn't interested in seeing him transform into a passionate spokesperson, I would rather focus on what is happening over there.I am a film goer who likes to think for himself, and this film doesn't allow me that luxury, it barks its orders at me as to what I should think and feel and do. It would be better if they let me digest this on my own. It is a tragedy over there, but I am interested in Darfur, not in the guy who photographed the insanity that is darfur.But I suppose this film wasn't meant to be looked at as a "film" per se, but rather as an educational video.

To those who have seen this film and care deeply about Darfur this comment will feel uncaring, even heretical. Rest assured that I do care about Darfur, but I can't escape the fact that this documentary is not really about Sudan, it's about a person -- Brian.Brian volunteered to be a military observer in Sudan to observe the cease fire of 2004. He witnessed many of the horrible events that happened that year. Many photographs were taken. Many are damnable of an uncaring Sudanese government. We are shown a few, but not enough. The film is very disappointing in that respect. It gives reason to those who claim that Brian's dossier does not constitute a strong enough case.The first half is a rough chronology of Brian's stint in Sudan. It is described in words. What is on the screen is a random assemblage of footage that is flashed without context. Sure, dead bodies are dead bodies, burning villages are so, kids do play ball, Brian folds his tent, etc. The problem is that this material is edited so poorly that it becomes a mess of images. There is no focus. Images and words are often disconnected. We are quite often not sure what we see.The editing improves when Brian goes to Chad. Finally we get a cohesive narrative that holds together visually. The short visit to Rwanda is also properly handled.Overall it is a disappointing documentary. A missed opportunity to build a stronger case for saving Darfur and also a disservice to the work Brian has done to expose the crimes that are being perpetrated. The excessive focus on Brian and less on his photos ends up painting this as an ego trip.

The most important aspect about The Devil Came on Horseback is its images, simply for the unfortunate fact that no one, really, has seen anything properly documenting the brutality going on over there. There's been sporadic text every now and then, and even a picture or two; but, by and large, the waves in the press about Darfur are merely ankle busters compared to this film's tsunami of pictorials and video, displaying the absolute horror of that region of Sudan.The film follows Brian Steidle, a man who's entire career has been military-based. He served as a USMC captain and when he would no longer see combat, he left the military and accepted a contract position in Sudan with the Joint Military Commission, where he would be an integral part of the North-South ceasefire, rising the ranks from a team leader to senior operations officer. After seven months, he was invited to Darfur, where he would serve as an unarmed military observer and American representative for the African Union in that region. This film documents his findings as an observer.What he found was systematic ethnic-cleansing genocide. The Sudanese government was not only enabling the mass extinction of its citizens, it was controlling it. The "devil" in the title of the film are the Janjaweed, nomadic black-Arab militia groups who massacre entire villages, by exterminating its non-Arab black African inhabitants and literally burn the tribes' homes to the ground. They are "paid" in plunder and are notorious for raping their female victims, castrating their male victims and torturing them all.The Janjaweed have been more adequately equipped and become a far greater threat since non-Arab groups, the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement, have risen up against the Sudanese government, for its mistreatment of its people. Although the government of Sudan has repeatedly denied any assistance to these barbarous raiding bandits, this film has been a breakthrough of evidence, showing quite clearly the government's involvement.To really understand this film, however, is to understand its tragedy. No one is really doing anything about this. Even after Steidle came back and lobbied before congress in an effort to call the United States to action, his plethora of images and video were dismissed as nothing more than inconvenient casualties in another state-sponsored genocide that we're unwilling to involve ourselves in. Sure, they were acknowledged and Colin Powell called it what it was--a "genocide"--but there's still over 450,000 dead and counting, and 2.5 million displaced.I could describe to you the images I saw--the maiming and killing of men, women and children; their eyes gouged out and their bodies burned, castrated and mutilated--and how I reacted, emotionally with tears of hopelessness and regret, when I saw this film. But instead, I think it far more powerful for you to go see this film for yourself. Then perhaps you'll want to take action and help let our government know that you want it to take active involvement in stopping this nightmare. It's not enough to talk about it and acknowledge that it's happening--we need to take active measures in preventing the perpetuation of these government sanctioned massacres.Remember, just as you've read this review in the comfort of your own home or office or wherever, the killing in Sudan continues. And it won't stop until every last one of the non-Arab black Africans are dead, or when, and if, someone steps in and takes appropriate action to stop it.