Although dramatically engrossing and intellectually stimulating this film falls short of the accurate history it needs. Ethan Hawke's plays John Brown as if he were an uneducated d uncouth, as well arguably insane, redneck. In fact he was born in Connecticut, son of Owen Brown, a founder during his Ohio years of the Western Reserve College and Preparatory School and supporter of the Oberlin Institute, John attended school at the Morris Academy in Litchfield, Connecticut. The social circles of Springfield Massachusetts in which he was schooled in abolitionism were erudite intellectual circles, whatever their final merits. Whatever the merits of his abolitionist militancy he was not simply the blathering unhinged fanatic of the Hawke's portrayal . Raymond Massey's more dignified and articulate portrayal of a fanatical Brown in Michael Curtiz's l940 THE SANTA FE TRAIL provides a useful antidote to provides a good to Hawke's Bible-savvy bumpkin. (Based only on Part one of two parts.)