"12 Years a Slave" is a British-American film based on the autobiography by Solomon Northup in 1853. Every turn of fate seems to send Northup into a nightmarish life of enslavement from one malicious owner to the next. His only solace was the possibility and hope of being reunited with his family as a free man once again. Until 1841, Solomon Northup had lived in the North; a free black man with a wife and children. He was educated and intelligent and robbed of his citizenship when a string of bad luck and malicious people thrust him into slavery. In the film, the disturbing scene of his kidnapping will soften even the hardest of souls. After his abduction and coercion into slavery, Northup ended up in the deep South. Here, he spends the next twelve years of his life trying to keep hold of his dignity - and his life. One of the most captivating aspects of the movie is the many different antagonists and ally’s he encounters through-out his journey to freedom. He meets several slaves along the way, who provide a comfort formed by a common bond of suffering that helps him cope with daily life. However, the most notable characters were the slave owners that had no end to their evil. While many of them were vile creatures with no sense of humanity, there was one saving grace; William Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch). He not only saves Solomon’s life but adheres to his Christian roots on his plantation. By the twelfth year, it seems there is no hope for Solomon to escape the hell that has been unjustly bestowed upon him, but finally there is a light at the end of the tunnel. When Solomon runs into Samuel Bass (Brad Pitt) a Canadian abolitionist, he sets the course that changes his life forever. Bass agrees to send a rescue note to Solomon’s home-town, a deed that leads Solomon to his long awaited rescue. Not much later, a prominent gentleman from his native New York comes to liberate him. After a painful, disheartening twelve years, he is