Fine child acting, poor direction and story. Extremely Overrated.

Rating: 4/10 (30 March 2002)

Before I start my explanation of the above statements, I would like to comment that I am an avid Gregory Peck fan and I have also found his work to be of exceptional quality. This movie is no exception. I have also read Harper Lee's novel of the same name and found it to succeed in every area and every issue that it was trying to portray. Unfortunately, this success did not transfer to film, even with Mr. Peck and a cast of exceptionally talented child-actors. Every aspect of the film, with the exception of Mr. Peck and the children, is lacking, misguided, and often tries to pull at the heartstrings of early 1960's viewers with lame set-ups and other devices used to show one side and one man as being absolutely unerring and without vice. The movie takes a while to develop and for the first half-hour focuses primarily on the children. The children do rather everyday things and converse with each other about nothing of consequence on the film. They finally decide to explore a "haunted house" to see the "maniac" that lives within it. While I felt that this avenue might lead somewhere, nothing of any consequence, albeit a small meeting with the maniac at the end of the film, came of this rather long and drawn out plot line. Next, we see that Mr. Peck, who portrays a compassionate, strong father and lawyer, is assigned to defend a black man who has supposedly committed a rape of a white female. Subsequent to this, there is never any conversation among Peck and the defendant, no evidence discussed prior to trial, and no real character development of the defendant and even to a larger extent Mr. Peck. We then see a few scattered scenes of the ultra-racist and completely ignorant father-of-the-victim, who tries his best to cause trouble and say dirty things to black people. Though he is shown as mean and stupid, he doesn't do anything particularly characteristic of an enraged racist father, he merely calls Mr. Peck a "ni$%er lover " and spits a lot. You will notice that he is not even with the angry mob that tells Mr. Peck to hand over the prisoner so that they can lynch him. Finally, we arrive at a trial, where it is unbelievable that this case would have even gone to trial based on certain obvious fact that you will see in the movie. In trying to say any more directly involving the film's plot, I would be spoiling the movie for you, but suffice it to say, if Mr. Peck were not in this film and did not give such a rousing courtroom speech, this movie would have been forgotten long ago. The direction is poor and uneven, plot tangents go untouched or under-developed, and many of the characters and actors seem rather silly. Instead of achieving what the book did in terms of portraying racism in the Depression South and the intriguing stories of the children, the film manages to seem poorly done, even cheap, and the child actors's obvious talents go to waste on dead end plot lines. Even the costuming seems badly done. You will notice that all of the whites wear overalls, while the "enlightened" Mr. Peck and a handful of kind blacks wear suits. In closing instead of being a thoughtful and poignant depiction of racism in the South, it seems contrived. My recommendation is to avoid this unless you are an avid Gregory Peck fan and read the novel. But if you really want to watch a movie close to this subject that is done well, try In the Heat of the Night or any number of Sidney Portier's films. 4/10