1964 - The year America was at war with itself!

Rating: 10/10 (6 September 2006)

1964 - The year America was at war with itself! Thats a pretty good tag-line. The promotion for this film seemed to pitch it as a thriller or a buddy movie. It is neither. This is a very mature investigation of a racist Mississippi town where the brutal murder of three civil rights activists took place in 1964. The film is inspired by real-life events.
Dafoe and Hackman play the two FBI agents sent to investigate. Their differing styles of pursuing the case and Dafoe's belated admiration for Hackman's "method's" is an interesting layer of flesh added to the structure of the film.
You will see some really nasty racist characters played by familiar faces like Brad Dourif, Lee Ermey and an especially violent Michael Rooker. All are excellent. Frances McDormand really steals the movie as the wife of racist Dourif.
This film is far more intelligent than some of the Stanley Kramer movies of the 60's which dealt with racism. It does not shy away from showing the seriousness (and sickness) of the racial mindset without being excessively preachy. It is in fact very watchable - largely due to a colorful and humorous Hackman whose character was himself a Mississippi small-town Sheriff at one time and understands the pitfalls of the Hoover boys going in all guns blazing.
Highly recommended!