A negative comment.

Rating: Null/10 (20 December 2009)

I am very sorry to say that I must give this classic film a rare negative review. I love most classic movies from the 40's through to the 60's inclusive, but unfortunately I did not enjoy this one very much. I know that it is widely regarded as a classic piece of cinema, and a wonderful book and story, up there with the likes of '12 Angry Men' or 'Casablanca', but to me it didn't compare with these films. I picked up the DVD a couple of months ago, and was all prepared to see a wonderful picture that I had heard great things about. Perhaps wrongly, I expected a great and triumphant court battle for the human rights of a wrongly-accused man, a black man at that. I am sorry to say that this expectation was too high, and that what I saw was a fairly half-hearted collection of courtroom discussions, surrounded by the goings-on of a couple of children in Depression America, along with the actions of some bigots. I know that many of you will say that it's not a story about the court drama, but about life in the Depression, and I acknowledge that to be true having seen the movie, but I think that the court-case should have been the central theme, and it could have been so much more. I acknowledge that Gregory Peck's performance is great as far as it goes, but I feel that it was constrained by a slightly insipid storyline. He, of course, makes the movie, and to me it would not even be watchable but for his presence. I have given the film a 5 rating, mostly because of Mr Peck's work, but I think that his talents were let down by the rest of the production. If you compare his appearance here with his work in Cape Fear, which was done in the same year, the two are very different; (in that movie Mr Peck did a brilliant job, showcasing the full range of his talents). I say sorry to the rest of you who love this film, but sometimes a movie just doesn't come up to expectations, and I just couldn't get into this one. It is very slow and very boring!