An important film, but fails to connect with its characters

Rating: 8/10 (15 June 2006)

Mississippi Burning is probably the most important film to come out in 1988. It is a fictionalized account of the murder of three civil rights activists by the Ku Klux Klan in 1965, a tragic, yet important, period in American history.
I only wish the film itself were better.
The key problem with this film is the character connections. I just didn't feel connected to any of the characters, they all seemed fairly shallow. Gene Hackman's bad cop, William Defoe's good cop, Francis McDormand's bullied housewife, even Brad Dourif's treacherous deputy sheriff, none of them really had bit of magic required to make the viewer connect with the character. I don't think it's the acting, they all tried to do the best with what they had. I think the fault lies with the writing.
I think the writer made a mistake by including too much interaction between the two FBI agents (Hackman & Defoe) and not enough into the interactions between them and the locals, and between the locals themselves. Frankly, the film relies so much on stereotype to create these characters, it's hard to get into them.
I also feel they shortchanged the black cast members. They're basically relegated to being beaten around, and singing at church. There's only one important scene involving blacks, the lynching of a father who's only trying to save his cows. Otherwise, they're simply window dressing.
I would love to see this film remade by a talented writer/director. Perhaps Spike Lee would love to exchange his New York City backdrop for a deeply Southern one. Now THAT would be a film.
8 out of 10. It's still an important story, and a risk for Hollywood, and it deserves props for that. But it could have been better.
Barky