Magical Black People, OH MY!

Rating: 5/10 (10 November 2005)

I appreciate the comments of the other users who have seen this film. But this film should make you angry for one reason and one reason only, that the FBI, the most volatile opponent of Civil Rights Workers, actually turn out the good guys. Mississippi Burning started the disturbing mini- genre of mainstream films exploring the atrocities of racism through the eyes of people who were the least offset by it., the white male. To cite prime examples of this genre where the plight of the African -American is used as a tool for the White character's growth or change. The Green Mile, The Legend of Bagger Vance, Places in the Heart, And most heinously, Ghosts of Mississippi,(where a great opportunity to tell the story of the amazing leader Medgar Evers is wasted to tell the story of the White lawyer who brought his murderer to justice. Is that why he died? Is that why he did all that work to free his people from oppression? Is that why he sacrificed his life to make sure that the white lawyer get's his props in a Hollywood movie?) are part of this legacy of having Black character's be the catalyst for the growth of the white people they come into contact. As if they don't bleed blood, but magical pixie-dust to enlighten the white masses.
It's this UN-focused liberalism that taints Mississsippi Burning. The argument of the writer's taking creative license with the historical facts to make a more compelling mystery is pointed, but the callousness of the Producer's hyping it as a socially- responsible, "important " film is just flat-out ridiculous. The film works as well as it can as a hard-boiled mystery, and is masterfully acted by Hackman, MacDormand, and Defoe, but Alan Parker is not known for his subtlety, and the villains of the piece are just so inherently evil, rather than being portrayed as just the sad, scary,ignorant, tragic hicks they were.