"What is wrong with these people"

Rating: 10/10 (5 July 2009)

I never understood why this movie was never on the Top 250. If American History X can make the Top 250 why not Mississippi Burning? Even Crash made the top 250 and this movie is way more powerful than Crash will ever be. Incredible. Mississippi Burning is a very hard film to look at but a very truthful and gritty look at racism in southern Mississippi during the Civil Rights era.
The story details FBI agents Rupert Anderson(Gene Hackman)and Alan Ward(Willem Dafoe) search for the killers an African-American male and two Jewish males. Their search takes them to the heart of Mississippi where the racism is deep-seated and the police are inflexible to a fault. They later realize how deep the police involvement in the killings were.
No other movie about race relations has moved me like Mississippi Burning has. American History X is phenomenal but it didn't make me as angry as this movie did. I wish I had the power to stop these psychos from doing what they did. Mississippi Burning was the movie that made me question my faith in organized religion. I couldn't fathom that I was believing in the same belief system that these racist lunatics were believing in. I dumped belief in organized religions after extensive research at the age of 20 but this movie sparked my curiosity. Gene Hackman is wonderful as Agent Rupert. He steals every scene he is in. Willem Dafoe is great as his partner Alan Ward. Agent Anderson(Hackman) handles things in an unconventional manner while Agent Ward(Dafoe) is by the book. This is where Dafoe showed his true potential before he started screwing up his career by appearing in raw sewage like Speed 2, Boondock Saints, Body Of Evidence and XXX: State Of The Union. Also great in this movie is Brad Dourif as the racist Deputy Clinton Pell and R. Lee Ermey as the racist mayor. I also like how they showed the views of the average ignorant Mississippian and how the cops either participated in the killing and terrorizing of Blacks in Mississippi or sat back and watched it happen.
Conclusion: Mississippi Burning is the best movie of 1989 hands down and is definitely required viewing. But be forewarned that this is not an easy movie to watch. But if you can stomach the racial violence and slurs you have a gem on your hands. I find it sad that the director Alan Parker didn't have many movies after this one.