Summary: James Woods was nominated for an Academy Award for this performance. Rob Reiner, who makes things I like, directed the film. Did I leave out Whoopi Goldberg? I guess that was an accident.
Plot Summary: Unlike made-up stories, this is a true one, only dramatized. Medgar Evers was killed in Mississippi in the early 60s, and Byron Delay Beckwith was arrested for his murder. After two mistrials, he was forgotten. Until 1990, that is. Under pressure from Evers' widow (Whoopi Goldberg), Alec Baldwin decided to try the case. The movie is about the 90s trial, and includes some flashbacks to the 60s.
Good Line from Medgar Evers' children: "Daddy! Don't die! I love you!" We learn so early that living is about loving, and that loving is a good enough reason to live. Evers' children learned at an early age that it's not enough to overcome the effects of a 30.06 slug.
Good Image: Singing Dixie. When Alec Baldwin's daughter saw ghosts in her room, she'd call her dad. He'd come in, and sing the song his mother sang to him, Dixie. It's a song about living and dying and taking a stand. It's a shame that he stopped singing it to her and switched to Old MacDonald. You'll never get a kid to sleep with that song.
Good Line: Medgar Evers, as related by his widow: "I don't know whether I'm going to heaven or hell, but I'm going from Jackson." Here was a man who loved the place he lived and the people he lived with, warts and all. There's nothing wrong with loving the South, there's something wrong with hating people. I love Dixie, but I love the Dixie that Medgar Evers loved, not the one the Byron Delay Beckwith loved. I guess that everybody in Dixie has their own ideas about what it is or was.
Good exchange: Any line involving Alec Baldwin's secretary, Claire. She cracked me up the whole movie.
I wish that just once, they'd: Play Dixie slowly, like a hymn. Everybody thinks it has to be fast, like Camptown Races.
Can Alec Baldwin act? In my opinion, this is the best I've seen him. GlenGarry Glen Ross was a good job, but it didn't have the dramatic range of this character. I'm not sure I buy him as a southerner (see Heaven's Prisoners), but he did a nice job. I've seen Whoopi act before, and SHE can play Southern, but she didn't choose to do either in this film.
On a five star scale, this movie goes pretty high. Four stars.
Reviewed: 25 july 1997