Mesmerising Gene

Rating: 8/10 (5 January 2002)

I found Mississippi Burning an amazing film mainly because of the performances of its two leads, but mainly because of the mesmerising performance of Gene Hackman. I have never known an actor so adept at acting with his eyes in a way that makes his performances so watchable and call for repeated viewing. In a similar way I thought his performance in "The Chamber", whilst being only an average film, was amazing.
All that being said, I felt that criticisms of the film itself are totally justified. Mississippi Burning portrays the blacks as weak camera-fodder victims seemingly without any involvement in any fight for civil liberties, and the portrayal of white FBI as Liberation fighters for the Black cause, who themselves instigated the end of American 'apartheid'! A little less naivety and more honest reality would have improved this film to the classic it could have so easily been.