June 24, 2016 | R | 2h 19m The year is 1863. Former blacksmith Newton Knight (Matthew McConaughey) steadies an ex-slave’s head against a mangrove tree in a Mississippi swamp and starts slamming the steel bolt on the medieval, 4-pronged “punishment collar” the runaway slave had been forced to wear. That particular sound of freedom carries a long distance in a Southern swamp, and immediately—explosively—a hunting party with dogs in full-cry is on the warpath to suppress it. Knight, making a run for it, gets run down by a German shepherd and viciously lacerated. After his bite wounds are healing later, the group of swamp-dwelling ex-slaves Knight has befriended chuckle: “Guess dem dogs likes the taste o’ you, much as dey likes the taste of us.” Civil War Knight, a battlefield nurse, deserts the Confederate Army after his nephew dies in his arms. He’s had it; he hauls the boy home …