The northern equation of submission or rebellion isn't operative here. The choice is submission or annihilation. This is Canton, Mississippi, and blacks can't talk back. Casting wantonly about for a fitting identity in the ugly waters of Christian fundamentalism and generalized hatred, the rednecks decide to resurrect the moribund Ku Klux Klan. Covered in hoods and the ashes of burning crosses, they exact a terrible price that tests the resolve of Carl Lee Hailey's defenders.
Some folks think that's brave.
I think we've all lost. In a beautifully articulated performance, Samuel L. Jackson delivers the rebuttal to that sentiment. The movie manages the neat trick of refusing to be undone by its own considerable implausibility. It succeeds because of its actors. You will remember Tonea Stewart as wife and mother, Charles S. Dutton as Sheriff Ozzie Walls, Kiefer Sutherland as a barbarian.