The Conspirator http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0968264/Solid cast with James McAvoy, Robin Wright, Kevin Kline, Alexis Biedel, Evan Rachel Wood, Milton Waddams from Office Space and Darryl from Walking Dead.
Directed by Robert Redford.
Tried to wring pathos from the story of Mary Surratt who was hanged as part of the reaction to the assassination of Lincoln. She was charged with conspiring to murder him and/or treason or something. Wright was Surratt and McAvoy her attorney Fred Aiken.
The problem? Despite the stellar cast, Redford kept the emotional shackles clamped tightly down. Wright was terribly bland and I found myself not caring a bit about her eventual fate because she didn't care much. McAvoy was restrained and his drive to defend a woman who assisted so little in her own defense and at such personal cost to his character seemed forced. There was never a compelling reason to support her and his emotional turn fell flat.
Wood and Biedel were also tepid and useless.
The pace was too slow, the emotional handwringing seemed contrived and every actor in the piece (even Milton) seemed to be sleepwalking through it.
There was a similarity to the Trayvon story that has been so prevalent lately in that Mary Surratt was guilty before she stepped foot in the courtroom. The verdict was pre-determined and even as McAvoy fought his way up the chain higher ups in the government had decided that she was going to be executed, evidence be damned. The government, personified in this film by Kline's Secretary of War Stanton, bowed to public outrage and made sure she went to the gallows. It took the suspension of a writ by President Johnson to accomplish it, but hanged she was.
And I didn't care.
That's sort of how I see this Zimmerman thing going. Since the Muslim Benefactor has already expressed his outrage and rushed to judgment I can easily see his conviction being pushed down from the top to appease the angry mob. Hell with freedoms.
And still this movie didn't make me care.
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