First Hit: A very well acted, historically accurate, drama.
As the credits rolled on this film it struck me how much our government has not changed over the years and not in a good way.
This story is about the US Government railroading the prosecution and killing of a non-guilty person because certain high government officials needed to “show the public" that they are setting things right. A number of years ago, September 11th brought out actions by the US Government which killed thousands of innocent people because we needed to have a strong and definitive response.
If Osama Bin Laden was the perpetrator of the NYC tragedy then why have we killed thousands of Iraqis and Afghans instead of the guilty party? Why have we lost thousands of our own soldiers in this misaligned endeavor; because we ignored our own beliefs (being fair and democratic) and rules of our democratic society (the Constitution).
We dropped thousands of bombs to make a point to our public that we're taking care of business. And to prove this we killed lots of people (innocent or not) and we've taken away some of your private rights (US Patriot Act). In the Conspirator, the Secretary of War, Edward Stanton (played by Kevin Kline) makes the point over and over again that we have to throw out the constitutional rights of citizens for the sake of getting the revenge he believes the public wants and entitled to.
The story is about a trial of Mary Surratt (played by Robin Wright) whose son, John Surratt (played by Johnny Simmons) conspired with a group of men, including John Wilkes Booth, to kill President Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward. The group was successful in killing Lincoln but only injuring the other two.
Mary Surratt was put on trial because her son held meetings with these conspirators in her boarding home. She did not know what they were conspiring to and she wouldn’t tell anyone where her son was hiding out and because of this, she was hanged as a conspirator. The trial was a military tribunal and was not a civil trial of her peers.
The trial was unconstitutional. Her initial lawyer Senator Reverdy Johnson (played by Tom Wilkinson), gave the case to Frederick Aiken (played by James McAvoy) who didn’t want to defend Mary because he believed she was guilty. But as a lawyer of people’s rights he changed his tune and saw the injustice that was being done to a fellow citizen.
After Mary’s conviction, he got a Writ of habeas corpus to have her tried in a civilian court as was her right but President Johnson denied the writ and she was hanged. Subsequently laws were passed to never allow this sort of behavior to happen again.
Wright was strong as a mother protecting her son and showed a wonderful clear grace in her faith as she was put to death. Great to see her on film again. McAvoy was excellent as a young northern Army Captain seeing clearly through his prejudiced beliefs as a union officer and being a fair lawyer. Kline was excellent as a government bully wanting to make believe might makes right. Wilkinson was good as a southern senator who was a Lincoln pallbearer and also supported the defending attorney. James D. Solomon wrote a very strong screenplay from his own story. Robert Redford directed this story with clarity of the story and not over dramatizing it for the sake of filmmaking. I appreciated the detail and clarity of this film and the point it was making.
Overall: I really liked the clarity and point of this story as Redford filmed it.