Mississippi Burning Reviews

I already saw this movie but since it was since such a long time ago, I was quite eager to check it out again, especially since it has such a stellar reputation. Well, I’m glad I checked it out again because I didn’t remember much about it. Still, even though I really liked the damned thing, I’m not so sure if I would really consider it a masterpiece though. First of all, this movie has been since then criticized because there was no major black characters involved but that’s not what bothered me. Indeed, if the FBI agents would have been black, there is no way that they could have done their work or if the local black people would have been more active in this investigation, they would have been probably killed by the Klu Klux Klan and, above all, the whole thing would have been rather unrealistic. Eventually, what didn’t really work for me was that the fact that their investigation was actually slightly disappointing. I mean, seriously, for most of the duration, their investigation went nowhere, they had no clues whatsoever, nobody wanted to cooperate, and the only way they could manage to crack this case was apparently to have Gene Hackman seduce the deputy’s wife. However, what really worked with this movie was that Alan Parker really managed to create such a vivid time and place. Basically, the deep south in the 60’s was pretty much a wasted land where black people were poor and terrorized for their sheer existence. However, the white folks were not much better and it seems that the only way they could find to cope with their miserable existence was to torment a whole group of people just because of the color of their skin. I’m writing in the past tense but it is actually still pretty much going on nowadays, especially this culture based on hatred. Anyway, to conclude, even though not everything really worked in this movie, it was still quite fascinating to behold and it is definitely worth a look.