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Reviewed - Amazing Grace:JUST in time for the 200th anniversary of the eradication of the British slave trade, Michael Apted, that reliable old work- horse, brings us a solid, densely researched study of MP William Wilberforce, the most iconic of the English abolitionists.

Following a religious conversion in 1785, Wilberforce devoted close to two decades to the task of criminalising the transporting of human souls. He was, by many accounts, a short, unprepossessing man with some socially conservative views on domestic issues. This would never do for a big liberal film and, accordingly, Apted has allowed him to be transformed into sleek, dashing Ioan Gruffudd.

That compromise is in keeping with a movie that adheres fairly strictly to the conventions of

the mainstream biopic. Mrs Wilberforce has become the anachronistically feisty Romola Garai. And the villainous friends of the slave industry - Toby Young, Ciaran Hinds - make every vile noise short of a cackle.

None of which is necessarily bad. Apted clearly intends to gather in a multiplex audience, and Amazing Grace has sufficient forward momentum to keep such a crowd interested over its busy two hours. Some viewers may regret that Steven Knight - screenwriter of a contemporary slave story in Dirty Pretty Things - fails to go among the trade's victims, but the film makes its own compulsive argument for focusing on the parliamentary campaign.

Still, admirable though Wilberforce was, it is hard not to think that the life of John Newton, played here by a gruff Albert Finney, would have provided the material for a more exciting film. Once the captain of a slave ship, Newton found God, became a recluse and wrote the hymn that gives the picture its title. Perhaps he might serve as the focus of Amazing Grace 2.