With this new director s cut Ang Lee reconstructs his original vision for his Civil War epic Ride with the Devil an intimate harrowing look at a country torn in half told from a daringly unorthodox perspective. Set in 1862 during the Kansas-Missouri border war the film stars Tobey Maguire as Jake and Skeet Ulrich as his friend Jack Bull; they join the Confederate-sympathizing Bushwhackers after Jack s father is killed by marauding members of the abolitionist Jayhawkers. But Ride with the Devil is also the story of their unusual ally Holt (an astonishing Jeffrey Wright) who s fighting for the South despite being a former slave. A rumination on identity and loyalty both political and personal Ride with the Devil is a provocative challenge to preconceptions about America s bloodiest conflict.