Mississippi Burning is an all-names-changed dramatization of the Ku Klux Klan's murders of three civil rights workers in 1964.

Rating: 7/10 (9 February 2010)

In 1964, three civil rights activists go missing in Mississippi, and two FBI agents (Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe) with directly opposing methods pursue their murderers.
Mississippi Burning is a film much garlanded with awards, yet the charge about its uneasy focus on the fate of white activists is one that sticks. However, it is shot exquisitely, moves along with relentless power, and at least conveys an unequivocal message about racism, however unexceptional and self-congratulatory that may be. Hackman's turn as the pragmatic FBI man, prepared to spout racial hatred in order to catch his perpetrators, is mesmerising. Mississippi Burning was preceded in 1975 by a television docudrama titled Attack On Terror: The FBI vs. The Ku Klux Klan, depicting many of the same events.