UNBELIEVABLY TOUTED in many quarters as a serious contender for Oscars glory, Ride With The Devil – an elegiac Dixie/Western set during the American Civil War – marks a sharp change of territory for its highly-respected director Ang Lee, a man more commonly associated with fine-lined character dramas such as the impeccable Ice Storm.

The critical consensus seems to be that he’s come up trumps again, but I must beg to differ – as hard as I tried to enjoy Ride With The Devil, it bored me catatonic. Not through any inherent flaws in the acting or the script : it’s the pace of the whole thing, or the lack thereof, which renders it so insufferable. Ride With The Devil aims all-out for an epic, stately,

sweeping, majestic tone, with the unfortunate side-effect that it . . . moves . . . like . . . this, only much slower.

As with almost all movies concerning the Civil War, it also comes down firmly on the side of the Confederate rebels (sure, everyone loves an underdog) and the film’s shameless romanticising of such a discredited cause can’t help but be called into question in this day and age.

Young Jake (Maguire) ignores his father’s advice and joins his best pal (Ulrich) in enlisting for the Rebs, then not-so-promptly finds himself up to his neck in an unforgiving war of attrition. Isolated scenes of extreme hair-raising violence, such as the stirring reconstruction of the 1863 Lawrence massacre, provide the film’s only faintly exciting moments, as it ploughs along its ponderous way for two-and-a-half hours.

The characters are sketched with a tad too much care and complexity for the film’s own good: Lee’s mastery at depicting relationships is not in question, but in the context of a war movie, it’s doubtful what purpose it serves. Insufferable acoustic-folkie whinger Jewel acquits herself remarkably well in her acting debut – hopefully heralding a complete change of career direction – and Maguire and Ulrich occasionally do the business, without ever threatening to leave any imprint on the consciousness.

There are those who will enjoy and appreciate Ride With The Devil, and it’s no disaster, but if it emerges with Oscars for anything other than its lush panoramic cinematography, it will be a shocking indictment of how poor the competition was.

Approach with caution.