A well-intentioned and largely successful civil rights-era thriller, Mississippi Burning uses the real-life 1964 disappearance of three civil rights workers as its inspiration. The film tells the story of two FBI men (Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe, entertainingly called "Hoover Boys" by the locals) who come in to try to solve the crime. Hackman is a former Mississippi small-town sheriff himself, while Dafoe is a by-the-numbers young hotshot. Yes, there is some tension between the two. The film has an interesting fatalism, as all the FBI's best efforts incite more and... more violence which becomes disturbing--the film's message, perhaps inadvertently, seems to be that vigilantism is the only real way to get things done. The brilliant Frances McDormand, here early in her career, is not given enough to do but still does it well enough to have racked up an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. (Hackman also received a nomination for Best Actor and the film won an Academy Award for Cinematography). The storyline of Mississippi Burning is ultimately unsatisfying--it is after all the story of white men coming in to rescue poor blacks--but it is beautifully shot, very watchable, and features a terrific cast playing at the top of their games. --Ali Davis, Amazon.com [show more]
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A fictionalised version of the events surrounding the Ku Klux Klan's murder of three civil rights workers in Mississippi in 1964, starring Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe as the FBI agents sent to investigate the case. What they find is a tangled web of intimidation and silence, with no one willing to speak about the events for fear of Klan reprisals. The supporting cast features Brad Dourif as a local lawman and Frances McDormand in an Oscar-nominated performance as his wife.
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