Perhaps Rob Reiner and company made this film with the best possible intentions. The story of Byron De La Beckwith's assassination of Medgar Evers in 1963 is worthy material and should have made for a powerful film. So I'm sure they didn't mean for the movie to be thuddingly inept, nor for it to be almost insulting to all who struggled to make civil rights a reality. Reiner directs with the subtlety of a kick to the lower abdominal area and the black actors are forced to act all noble on us. And here's yet another Hollywood film that narrows it down to this---the crazy racist situation in Mississippi can only be fixed by a white lawyer. Even if every second of this story is true, the way the movie presents it is obvious, dull, and insipid.
James Woods is one of the most exciting actors alive, but even he's dudding it up in this pic. His Oscar nomination was most undeserved. He plays a caricature. Even if the real Byron De La Beckwith is as over the top and imbecilic as Woods plays him, he's more of a buffoon than a monster. Beckwith deserved justice and Medgar Evers' family obviously deserved to see the guy pay for his crime, but it's hard to cheer when a film botches the story as badly as this.
If there are ghosts in Mississippi, they were probably dying to haunt the film set to make the film-makers tell this story right. Don't let these people near a Martin Luther King script. This team would find a way to make even the most-important black leader of the 20th century seem boring.
James Woods is one of the most exciting actors alive, but even he's dudding it up in this pic. His Oscar nomination was most undeserved. He plays a caricature. Even if the real Byron De La Beckwith is as over the top and imbecilic as Woods plays him, he's more of a buffoon than a monster. Beckwith deserved justice and Medgar Evers' family obviously deserved to see the guy pay for his crime, but it's hard to cheer when a film botches the story as badly as this.
If there are ghosts in Mississippi, they were probably dying to haunt the film set to make the film-makers tell this story right. Don't let these people near a Martin Luther King script. This team would find a way to make even the most-important black leader of the 20th century seem boring.