I agree a very well made movie. Not easy to watch in parts. Great acting though. The only scenes I thought were poorly done were all the ones with Brad Pitt in them. Those scenes are very important to the movie, but would have been much better with an unknown actor. It's not that I have anything against Brad Pitt, but for a lot of reasons - to me it didn't work as well to have him in this role. Spoiler For instance - with an unknown actor, after their initial conversation where he agrees to help Solomon - you might feel some suspense if he would keep his word. Since it was Brad Pitt, I felt he wouldn't have taken a small role to never be seen again - so it seemed like a sure thing he would come through. Chiwetel Ejiofor was great in it. To tie this back to MA - he also was in an IMHO pretty good film called redbelt where he played a BJJ Instructor/fighter.