Henson lends realism to war story

By Lee Hysinger
Contributing critic

The movie "Pharoah's Army" opens with a shot of dirt being flung in a pile. It's a grave digging. "Pharoah's Army" is a movie based on a true story about a family living in Kentucky at the time of the Civil War. The family consists of the wife and son of a Confederate soldier who is fighting in the war. The son tells the story by reflecting on his life.

Their family unit increases in the movie when a band of Union soldiers, five in all, attempts to ransack the house, but fall prey to human error. One of the soldiers falls from a barn loft and gets impaled on a rake. The soldiers then are forced to take up residence with the family until the injured soldier is able to leave.

The preacher, played by Kris Kristofferson, refers to a biblical passage about Pharoah's Army being crushed by the Red Sea upon hearing about the Yankee situation at the neighboring farm.

At the time this occurs in the movie, it is ironic because everything is going sour for the Union soldiers holed up in the Confederate household.

Pharoah's Army consists of a troop of Union soldiers who have not seen action yet, but instead find a different type of action.

There is the commonsense captain who is a widower; the young soldier who is deathly ill; an irrational egomaniacal redneck; a Swiss intellectual and a bumbling idiot.

Feelings run deep between the captain and the wife.

The two are without their most beloved and gradually become more cooperative. Even though the captain first is seen as an evil character bent on destruction, he is seen as a person portraying feelings when his soldier is injured.

The wife of the Confederate reluctantly is compassionate and gives the captain medicine for the wounds of the young man. The captain has feelings of guilt later and feels like he is home with his deceased wife.

Because of the captain's compassion, he decides to relieve the son of the Confederate and plow the fields for the family.

The movie "Pharoah's Army" is a movie for all ages. It contains many lessons about getting along with people. It is a modern day classic for Kentuckians. The movie runs smoothly and is never short of action, but the best thing about it is that it is based on the roles of human interaction.

The impression which I left with is that the style in which it was made is comparable to a movie of the caliber of "The Bridges of Madison County."

There wasn't a lot of dialogue, but there were many scenes of great tension. One such incident was when the captain must deal with the redneck deserting the squad. The penalty for desertion is death.

The director, Robby Henson, who is from Danville, had only done documentaries before this movie. That is probably why this movie seems more realistic than a traditional Civil War film. This transition has proven successful because "Pharoah's Army" is indeed a great movie.