Mississippi Burning (1988)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Strong character and a brilliant plot this film is brilliant. An all star cast deliver their performances perfectly with the villains being easy to hate and the protagonist being great to follow. Highly recommend

This film is an important film to watch because of its subject matter and how the actors chose to portray themselves. It is a hard film and so very harrowing. However I loved it because it was educational and made me really think

When three civil rights workers disappear FBI Agents Alan Ward (Willem Dafoe) and Rupert Anderson (Gene Hackman) are tasked with investigating their disappearances. What starts out as a routine missing persons investigation quickly escalates into something much more serious especially when Ward (who isn't from Mississippi) starts to learn more about its townsfolk and about how those in charge choose to 'run' their town.I suppose it was kind of inevitable that a film like Mississippi Burning is going to be met with a rather mixed reception particularly as it apparently plays very 'loose' with the facts. In all fairness though anyone who watches a film and expects it to be 100% faithful or true to the story is somewhat naïve. What you get with Mississippi Burning is an interesting and fairly entertaining film which provides an insight into racial segregation in 1960's America - at least that's how I saw it!!!Although a lot of what we see may be fictional director Alan Parker works well with scriptwriter Chris Gerolmo in creating a powerful and somewhat terrifying look at the devastation that can be caused through bigotry and narrow-mindedness. Parker doesn't hold back and manages to stage some excellent scenes (the scene with Gene Hackman in the barber shop is particularly chilling as well as being memorable). The brutality continues throughout the film, which, admittedly, can make it hard to watch, but for me, this adds to the realism and Parker really engages with the viewer by drawing them into this appalling period of history.The strong performances compliment Parker's brutal direction well and the likes of Hackman and Dafoe are both good here (even though they are a rather clichéd pair of mismatched cops) Despite this though there's still an interesting and rather uneasy dynamic between the two men and the script occasionally affords them some amusing exchanges. The villains of the piece (Ermey, Dourif, Rooker, and Sartain) are excellent and all give rather sneering and cold-hearted performances.Aside from the cops and procedural elements being a tad clichéd one other aspect of this film that I found slightly problematic was the character of Mrs Pell (Frances McDormand). Her character is one of the few 'white' people who disagrees with segregation and is against how the Klu Klux Klan and the majority of white people treat the black people. This made her an interesting character who really should have had a more active role in the film. Instead of that, she is little more than window dressing and a bit on the side for Anderson (which is a tad frustrating and a waste of McDormand's acting talent). I personally felt that the film would have been slightly better if it had have at least given us some insight into what things were like on the other side of the fence.So yes there are some flaws with this film and rather ironically the narrative does suffer from being a bit 'black and white' However, it is a powerful drama that takes us back to an appalling time period, and although some of its brutality makes it hard to watch, I did find it to be a relatively engaging story.

Great movies are ones that give you a strong emotional response whether you can relate to the movie or not. From little things such as camera angles to costume to using lighting on someone's face in just the right way. However this movie is very violent and some people might not want to watch the harsh and brutal reality. This is what makes the movie come to life and for you to know what people went through, if they kept the violence out they wouldn't have got their point across as well as they did. I very much enjoyed this film and is one of the best I've seen The acting in this film was amazing and I think they made a good decision on picking the actors they did. They picked actors that somewhat look like the men from the real life story. They also picked actors by just looking at them they had a strong presence of hatred. I really liked the good cop bad cop aspect and having two FBI agents that have totally different styles. For example Anderson is very charming, easy to talk to and relaxed. You can even tell this by his costume, loose tie non ironed shirt and he does not often wear a suit jacket. On the other hand Ward is very serious and isn't friendly with his witnesses. His costume is very stiff, clean cut and always wears a part in his hair and a full suit jacket at all times. The only thing I think the makers of the film could have made better was the structure or the outcome of the story line. Right from the beginning you know what is going to happen by the end of the film. However it is an ending that can sit right with everyone. I think they took the safe route by not switching up the storyline just to make the viewers happy. If they were to make a not so predictable ending that would make the media talk more about the film. The best part of the film is the cinematography and lighting. For example using lighting from the bottom of the actors faces to make people look more evil and sinister. The director also did a lot of making certain characters more superior by filming the actor they want to have power in the scene up higher so they look in charge. Lastly they made the lighting darker for the very brutal parts such as killing to give it a creepy evil vibe while still keeping it appropriate to put in a film.Mississippi burning had its own type of music like building up (i.e. car chase) music that continues to get louder and more intense the more it goes on. Once something brutal and awful is happening there is soulful gospel music. Even when nothing is happening or no actor is saying there lines, if you listen close you can always here the noise of crickets in the background.In conclusion I would give this film 4 stars out of 5. The cinematography and lighting was amazing, same with the music and actors. However the storyline's outcome was to predicable and they could have made the outcome more shocking.