Ride with the Devil

Ride with the Devil is a 1999 American Revisionist Western film directed by Ang Lee and starring Tobey Maguire, Skeet Ulrich, Jeffrey Wright, and Jewel in her feature film debut. Based on the novel Woe to Live On, by Daniel Woodrell, the film, set during the American Civil War, follows a group of men who join the First Missouri Irregulars, also known as the Bushwhackers—guerrilla units loyal to pro-Confederacy units of the state—and their war against Northern Jayhawkers allied with the Union army. Simon Baker, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Jonathan Brandis, Jim Caviezel, Mark Ruffalo, and Celia Weston are featured in supporting performances. The film was a co-production between Universal Studios and Good Machine. Principal photography began on March 25, 1998. Theatrically, it was commercially distributed by the USA Films division of USA Networks and premiered in only six theaters nationwide in the United States on November 26, 1999, and for only three days, grossing a total of $635,096 (~$ in ). Taking into account its $38 million budget costs, the film was considered a major box office bomb. Ride with the Devil has been noted for its thematic exploration of politics, violence and war. In 2010, The Criterion Collection released a restored high-definition digital transfer for the home media market, featuring an extended 148-minute director's cut of the film. Plot Jake Roedel and Jack Bull Chiles are friends in Missouri when the Civil War breaks out. Roedel is the American-assimilated son of a German immigrant who suffers from sporadic anti-German suspicion from other Southerners (as the German population in the state was largely sympathetic to the Union) while Chiles is the son of planter Asa Chiles.