Hoodwinked Too - Hood vs Evil

MPAA (G) CNS/USCCB (A-II) Michael Phillips (1 star) Fr. Dennis (1/2 star)

IMDb Listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0844993/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.usccb.org/movies/h/hoodwinkedtoo2011.shtml
Michael Phillips review -
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/movies/sc-mov-0426-hoodwinked-2-20110428,0,6521350.column

I found Hoodwinked Too - Hood vs Evil (directed by Mike Disa and co-written by Cory Edwards and Todd Edwards and two others) to be a very creative, often honestly very funny, but on reflection also a very disturbing animated film, one of several (including Hop) in which I found the accenting of the animated characters to be really problematic.

The film features various re-imagined staples from Grimm’s Fairy Tales working for the HEA (Happy Ending Administration) dedicated to keeping things running happily and ending well in their make-believe world.  Honestly, a “kinder, gentler CIA?”

Little Red Riding Hood (voice by Hayden Panettiere) begins the movie getting “green beret” training at a Himalayan martial arts center reminding one of Kung Fu Panda.  The Big Bad Wolf (voice by Patrick Warburton) who’s now her partner is (when one thinks about it, unsurprisingly) a “master of disguises.”  Grandma (voice by Glenn Close) is the keeper of a secret truffle recipe on which the well-being of the world depends. 

Then there are the villains.  There’s the "mostly talk," but when it comes down to it "incompetent" green African American sounding Troll (voice by David Alan Grier) who serves as Red Riding Hood's sparing partner during her training.  There’s the Slavic sounding witch, named Verushka (voice by Joan Cusack), jealous of Grandma for "always coming to second to her" early in life.  There are the rather vindictive Hispanic sounding Three Little Pigs (voiced among others by Cheech Marin).  There’s the Italian mafia like “big guy”/”gumba” (Giant) from Jack and the Beanstalk who runs a seedy club in San Francisco. 

And then there is are the German accented twins Hansel and Gretel (voices by Bill Hader and Amy Poehler) around whom the whole story comes to revolve.

I found the story creative, and yes at times very funny.  Still, I can’t help but be concerned about the use of accents in these animated stories.  I have a sister who’s name is Vera, known to us in our Czech immigrant family as Veruška (pronounced Verushka).  And ironically, she’s spent most of her life trying really, really hard to be an American.  And here’s a Verushka cast as a Slavic sounding witch ...

Then there’s Cheech Marin saying “arriba los puecos!” (Long live the pigs!) as he leads three heavily armed “little pigs” as they try to get their vengeance against the English stately sounding  “Big bad wolf” who previously tried "to blow their house down." 

The Silverster Stalone looking “gumba” Giant isn’t exactly a bright light for Italian Americans trying to get past their stereotypes. 

And even Hansel and Gretel turn out to be rather “complex.”

Honestly, how’s is one supposed to wrap one’s head around all this if one is not a WASP?

It’s funny, no doubt. But honestly, what a collection of non-Anglo-Saxon stereotypical villains ...


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Prom

MPAA (PG) CNS/USCCB (A-1) Michael Phillips (2 1/2 Stars) Fr. Dennis (2 stars)

IMDB listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1604171/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.usccb.org/movies/p/prom2011.shtml

Michael Phillips' review -
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-prom-20110428,0,3805785.column

I was somewhat guilted/talked into going to see Prom (directed by Joe Nussbaum and written by Katie Wech) by one of my parish’s teenagers.  To be honest, I figured that the Prom Night horror movies and Carrie had about as much to say about Prom that I’d be willing to give the subject.  However, movies like the High School Musical franchise and the television series Glee have revisited high school in recent years and spun it in probably the most positive light since Happy Days of my teenage viewing days.  So I figured I’d give it a shot.

And I have to say that it did have its moments.  In particularly I could not but feel for student council president Nova Prescott (played by Aimee Teegarden) trying her heart out to make her hitgh school’s prom the “best prom ever.”   I’ve known people like this and for the sake of a good soul trying to make something work, most of us probably could be convinced to take a grenade or something.  The rest of the cast is the typical collection of characters assembled for high school movies.  There was at least one more or less obvious homage to The Breakfast Club.  But all this was more or less obviously stitched together by Disney in the service of repackaging and remarketing Prom.

And therein to me lies the problem: No matter how Disney, Inc spins it, Prom remains largely a crass commercial enterprise with questionable and even objectionable social value.  Prom has always been something of a social report card.  In generations past it was even a final exam of sorts. But on what criteria?  One’s looks, one’s date’s looks, one’s money, one’s date’s money, at times even the two’s sexual performance.   No wonder therefore that Prom became the subject of teenage horror movies...

At least in generations past, a fair percentage of prom couples did eventually get married and _not just_ because a fair number of the women got knocked-up as a result of the whole thing, but because the couple had been dating throughout a good part of high school, and after high school the guy got a decent job at the shop, factory or farm and the couple could set-up house.  Today, _that’s generally impossible_ and most prom couples end up splitting up, heading in different directions to different schools after high school graduation. 

All this has thankfully contributed to Prom becoming Prom-Lite over the last 20 years.  Parents have stepped it to make it less of a free for all.  It’s now socially acceptable (again?) to go to Prom in groups rather than rigorously paired up, saving both parents and kids money and frankly diminishing the previous annual “off to college”run on abortions at Planned Parenthood in August-September that the “May Prom Season” used to spawn. 

But then, if Prom is thankfully becoming Prom-lite is that “good for business?”  Well, that may best answer Disney’s interest in producing this film, Prom – to repackage and resell Prom's “mystique” to the High School Musical generation.   Folks, an end of high school dance is certainly nice.  But folks, please, please don’t let Disney or anyone else make this single high point in your life be your last.


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Tyler Perry's Madea's Big Happy Family

MPAA (PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (3 stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1787759/

Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Big Happy Family (written, directed and starring Tyler Perry as Madea) continues the very successful Madea franchise, featuring Mabel (Madea) Simmons, a scrappy 70 year old African American grandmother who’s done all her life what she needed to in order to survive. As often the case in the Madea movies, she’s not necessarily the central character at the beginning of the film though she becomes more important as the movie progresses.

Also endearing in these movies is that even if often presented with exaggeration, the movies deal with real pain and real issues. In the opening scene in this movie, Madea’s niece Shirley (played by Loretta Divine) is told by her doctor, Dr Evans (played by Philip-Anthony Rodriguez) that her cancer has returned and this this time it was much more aggressive than before. Shirley wants to get her three children and their families together to tell them the sad news. This simple desire proves heartrendingly difficult to realize as Shirley’s adult and soon to be adult children are absorbed in their own lives, resentments and with their own demons:

Daughter Tammy (played by Natalie Desselle) is disappointed with her honest but modest auto-mechanic husband Harold (played by Rodney Perry). Their constant fighting makes it difficult for either of them to control their two soon to be teenage sons.

Second daughter Kimberly (played by Shannon Kane) has moved "uptown" and resents her simpler, "more ghetto" relatives. She even harps on her husband Calvin (played by Isaiah Mustafa) even though he appears to be the "perfect" for her – good looking, financially successful, a _nice guy_ and seemingly utterly devoted to her. Still, she can’t be happy.  (The reason why becomes revealed later in the movie and makes one cry).

Finally, there’s the 18 year old son Byron (played by Bow Bow) who’s already spent time in jail and fathered a child with a similarly young ex-girlfriend, Sabrina (played by Teyana Taylor). Sabrina turns out to be a gum-chewing, fast food restaurant working "baby mama from hell." But even though the two _don’t_ live together "he did make his bed," (Byron’s created a child) and so he’s got to live with the financial obligations and consequences. Byron’s new "high maintenance" girlfriend Renee (played by Lauren London) presents her own problems.

After several heartrending attempts by soft-spoken Shirley to get this family together for dinner to that she could them the news, "super ghetto" Madea increasingly takes over to knock some sense into Shirley’s kids so that she could do finally so, AND EVEN MADEA IS ONLY _PARTLY_ SUCCESSFUL.

Critics have complained that Tyler Perry exaggerates his characters too much. I can tell readers _without reservation_ that family dysfunction and resentment approaching the level presented here both _definitely exists_ and _definitely transcends ethnicity_. Consider simply that the recent South Korean movie "Shi" ("Poetry") about a grandmother raising an utterly clueless and ungrateful grandson for her daughter touches on almost exactly the same themes and arguably with even more brutal honesty. But obviously both parish life and even human life is filled with similar examples of people too absorbed in their own issues to see what’s going on even with loved ones around them. (Both the just and just ask Jesus at the Last Judgement "when did we see you [in need]?" Matthew 25:31-46).

Madea's Big Happy Family is probably not for little kids (because they probably wouldn’t get it) and but for teens and above I do believe the movie is excellent (the movie is IMHO appropriately rated PG-13, with multiple exaggerated references to drug use and some bleeped profanity), reminding us that we do have a duty to wake-up and care for those around us. God bless you Tyler Perry for giving us a tough message in the same way that Robin Williams often has – with a smile.


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Win Win

MPAA (R) CNS/USCCB () Roger Ebert (3 Stars) Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb Listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1606392/
CNS/USCCB Review -
Roger Ebert’s Review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110324/REVIEWS/110329991

Win Win (screenplay written and directed by Thomas McCarthy, story by him and Joe Tiboni) is a family drama set in a nondescript town in New Jersey. Mike Flaherty (played by Paul Giamatti) a 40-something lawyer sharing a practice with Stephen Vigman (played by Jeffrey Tambor) is worried about his bills. With the economic downturn, cases have dried up and he is struggling. The addition of new baby daughter added further pressure. What to do?

Well Mike had an older court appointed client, Leo Poplar (played by Burt Young). who did have some money but no apparent family and was exhibiting worsening signs of dementia. The State wanted to make Leo a Ward of the State and place him in a senior home. Mike beats back this attempt by volunteering himself to be Leo caretaker (for a nice $1500/mo stipend). Surprised that Mike would want to do that, the State nevertheless agrees. Mike then puts Leo in the Senior center _anyway_ promising to be somehow more personable than the State would have been (He’d visit him and take him out of the home on a more regular basis, etc, etc) and pockets the $1500. A "Win/Win," Right? Sort of?

Things start to go wrong almost immediately. Kyle (played by Alex Schaffer), Leo’s grandson shows up at Leo’s door step. Kyle is the son of Leo’s troubled and estranged daughter Cindy (played by Melanie Lynskey). Having been forced to stay with another one of Cindy’s boyfriends while she was in rehab again, Kyle had decided to split and look for his grandfather Leo who he had never met. But Leo is now in a Senior home and Mike is nominally cutting the lawn taking care of his house. Kyle, who was 16-17 year old junior in high school, can’t stay in Leo’s home alone. What to do? Mike decides to try to take Kyle in to his home over the initial objections of his wife Jackie (played by Amy Ryan).

Kyle proves to be a remarkably young talented wrester and Mike and his lawyer partner Stephen serve as wrestling coaches at the local high school. Again, what a break! After a little bit of a dust-up, it seems like it's going to be another "win/win."

Well Cindy, Kyle's mom, gets out of rehab, and comes out to New Jersey looking for both her son and her father’s money. She hires another lawyer, Eleanor (played by Margo Martindale) and offers to take care of her dad (after more than 10 years of not even speaking to him). Mike knows that she’s only out for Leo’s money, but _he’s_ actually doing the exact same thing, using Leo for his money and he’s supposed to have been his lawyer. What now?

The rest of the movie is about figuring out an answer to that question. It’s sticky, it’s complicated and definitely _not_ a simple "win/win." But then that’s life ... What a great movie!

Another character who I haven't mentioned up until this time, but is present throughout the whole story is Bobby Cannavale (played by Terry Delfino) who's  Mike’s best friend. Bobby doesn’t really do all that much thoughout the story, except that he’s _always there_ in both the good times and in the not so good. By the end, however, one has to say, what a good friend!

Win Win came out a number of weeks ago and will probably disappear soon to cable and video. But it’s actually a very good family oriented movie (the R-rating is _simply_ for _mild occasional profanity_) about figuring out what really ought to matter.


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Water for Elephants

MPAA (PG-13) CNS/USCCB (O) Roger Ebert (3 stars) Fr. Dennis (3 stars)

IMDb Listing - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1067583/
CNS/USCCB Review - http://www.usccb.org/movies/w/waterforelephants2011.shtml
Roger Ebert's Review - http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110421/REVIEWS/110429994

Water for Elephants (directed by Francis Lawrence, screenplay by Richard LaGravenese based on the book by Sara Gruen) is a thoughtful and provocative melodrama set during the Great Depression. Jacob (played by Robert Pattinson of the Twilight series fame), about to get his degree in veterinary science at Cornell University has his world turned upside down when he is pulled out of his final exam to the news that his Polish immigrant parents (who had just reminded him that morning of how proud they were of him) were killed in a car accident. As he seeks then to their accounts in order, he finds out that the bank was going to take their farm. Why? His father had mortgaged the farm to pay for Jacob's tuition payments. After getting a lecture from the banker "don’t make the same mistakes that your father did," Jacob packs a suitcase (the farm is going to go anyway) and starts heading "to the city" (Albany) in hopes of finding a job. It’s 1931. The freight train that he seeks to jump onto to hitch a ride turns out to be circus train, and thus begins the adventure of his life.

The circus is owned by August (played by Christoph Waltz of Inglorious Basterds fame). He is nuts, running his circus like a pirate ship. When employees cause him trouble or he can’t afford to keep everyone, he literally has the "troublemakers" or "expendables" thrown off the train.

Why would anyone work under such conditions? And perhaps why would someone like August, who has his charming qualities as well, become such a monster? Jacob, who until recently had not felt poverty/desperation, asked such questions both of himself and of August’s lovely but (psychically) scarred wife Marlena (played by Reese Witherspoon) who was actually of Jacob's age rather than that of August who seemed almost a generation older than both of them.

In good part, the reason why people put up with such conditions was because it was the Depression. People were desperate. Circuses were also the "end of the line" for many particularly vulnerable people. So if one already had a predisposition for sadism or megalomania, leading such an operation was a perfect fit. Thus August became the "king" of something of a traveling infirmery/madhouse in a world (Depression Era rural New York) that seemed at the time to have met its Apocalypse. (It would not be entirely a stretch to compare the rural New York of Water for Elephants to the post-apocalyptic worlds of the Mad Max movies or more recently the Book of Eli. Those other movies were, of course, far more starkly drawn, but when people get thrown off the train in the dead of night because the Boss doesn’t have money to feed them, one’s talking about very dark times).

Jacob proves useful to August because he is vet. Well, he wasn't really a vet because he never actually got his degree (because of the tragic deaths of his parents).  But he was "almost a vet" and to a "pirate circus" running on a shoe string, that was good enough.

When the circus’ star horse, which Marlena was riding in the show, dies (Actually it’s put-down between shows by Jacob despite August’s objections, who’d have the horse just be run into the ground) August bets the whole circus on the acquisition of a show elephant named Rosie from another circus that had met its end. Nobody really had a clue about how to manage an elephant but August nominally puts Jacob in charge of making the elephant into an act. And when Jacob doesn’t immediately know what to do, August offers his own approach. Fortunately, Jacob discovers something remarkable about Rosie (which folks who know something about animal training would appreciate) and this at least temporarily saves the day.

The rest of the movie is quite predictable and tragic, kinda like watching the "proverbial train wreck," even though (1) that isn’t exactly what happens and (2) anyone likes these kinds of movies will certainly get one’s money’s worth – there are plenty of places where this movie will make one cry.

I wouldn’t recommend the movie for small children because of some of the treatment of the animals (as well as of people) which is quite traumatic.  But also thematically I can’t imagine that an "8 year old" would enjoy watching a 2 hour movie about desperately poor people seeking to find a way to survive.

For adults, however, the movie certainly has something to say about "old-time patriarchy" (represented by August) where the man, however insane, was "the Boss," and the contrast between that approach and the more gentle one (represented by Jacob) that most of us are now more familiar with where everyone is made to feel that "yes, times are tough but we’re in this together."

In our current tough economic times, a movie set during the last Great Depression with this conflict playing out "on the train" offers one much to think about indeed.

Finally, the United States is a nation of immigrants, something that often gets highlighted in the movies.  Those of Polish descent may appreciate this movie in a special way for its positive portrayal of Polish-Americans as honest, hardworking, family-oriented folk with their heads-screwed-on right and their values in order throughout the film.  There have been many movies made over the years about Irish Americans, Italian Americans, Jewish Americans, Hispanic Americans, etc.  This is the first movie that I can think of where old -time Polish Americans are presented in such a nice, prominent and positive way.  And there is a nice surprise / plot twist in the movie that further highlights the Polishness of this story as well.


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Scream 4

MPAA (R) CNS/USCCB (0) Roger Ebert (2 stars) Fr Dennis (3 stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1262416/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.usccb.org/movies/s/scream42011.shtml
Roger Ebert’s review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110414/REVIEWS/110419991

Scream 4 is the latest in the Scream franchise (all written by Kevin Williamson and directed by horror legend Wes Craven) of slasher horror flicks and all starring Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox and David Arquette. The gimmick in the Scream series is that the characters these movies have all seen other slasher horror films and so try to avoid mistakes made by characters in the previous films even as they walk into "new" mistakes or end up making other "old" mistakes.

Hence there’s there’s a scene midway through the movie, after the slasher "ghostface" (who wears a black hooded cape and a stupid drugstore quality Halloween ghost mask) has racked up a half a dozen new high school/teenage victims, when two young cops (one white, one African American) are sitting in their squad car protecting the home of Sidney Prescott (played by Neve Campbell) the series’ perpetual but always surviving victim. And the two cops realize, "Hey wait a minute, it’s not good to be rookie in these stories." Then one looks at his watch and says, "Well I guess it’s time to take a look around again." The other, stepping out of the car says, "Sure, I’ll be right back. Oh shoot, that’s a terrible line to say in these kind of movies!" He’s right, but it doesn’t matter. They both soon die... ;-)

I put a smiley at the that episode, because the movie, as blood-soaked as it is, is actually very funny. Now how could that be? Well here is where Wes Craven has been a genius when it comes to these kind of films and certainly Kevin Williamson has learned a lot from this master over the years. It seems to me that a commercially successful horror film has to both spook the audience and yet spook not it too much. That is, the audience has to always remember that it’s "just watching a movie." So how’s that signaled? It’s best signaled by sticking to stock, more or less predictable characters and formulas, or tweaking the characters/formulas but only "just so much" as nothing completely falls off the audience’s comfort zone. Yes, one _could_ certainly create a truly blood-curdling, Hell-like, utterly terrifying/incomprehensible movie, but very few people would see it, much less go to a sequel.

So if a film-maker is smart (and Craven/Williamson are certainly that, arguably geniuses, in this regard) the film-maker would make a "horror" movie that (1) scares, (2) may even address an aspect of contemporary/pop culture – Scream 4 is certainly about the i-phone/app, Facebook, webcam "all is online" teen/young adult mentality of today – but (3) not scare too much, because one wants one’s customers to come back. So one seeks then to make _really good_ "two hour Disneyland rides."

Now there could be a lot of fun doing this, and the horror movie genre is one which lends itself to "dialoging" between movies and/on building upon previous ones. As I wrote in my review of The Roommate, a generation ago, the heroine of these movies was generally the easily identifiable "good girl." Back when I was a teenager, we used to almost immediately identify her as "the Virgin." (which becomes a _very interesting_ label theologically speaking, see below). In recent years, there seems to be "dialog" going-on in the horror genre in regards to the question "What if the ‘good girl’ isn’t particularly good anymore?" The recent movies Drag Me to Hell, The Roommate and this one, Scream 4, all deal with new ‘good girls’ who aren’t all that ‘good.’ And each of these movies takes the new scenario with the "not altogether good girl" and plays with it.

Now many critics generally hold their noses when reviewing these kinds of movies, noting the bloodbath and mayhem that’s often present, but (1) as I explained above, the bloodbath/mayhem can’t be too excessive or else one will lose patrons, and (2) Wes Craven was an English major and hence certainly knew his Shakespeare. Shakespearean tragedies were _always_ bloodbaths, where all "the guilty" and a even few of the innocent died and only a very few (and often _not even_ the tragic heroes of the story) were left standing at the end.

The contemporary mad slasher flick is actually quite similar. The guilty (usually of some form of arrogance) _all_ meet bad ends (often in particularly gruesome ways), some innocent bystanders (like the cops above) often die (hey, even in the original Star Trek series, the poor schmucks wearing the red uniforms at the beginning of each episode were almost always dead by the second or third scene) and only a very few are left standing at the end of the film, _usually_ one of them being the ‘good girl,’ who usually fended off the monster (in a story line as old as the Bible, Gen 3:15, Rev 12).  Note, I even wrote an article about this matter, as it was presented in the movie The Terminator a few years after finishing the seminary.

Scream 4 tweaks and plays with the formula but ends basically with the same result. And part of the enjoyment for the audience watching is trying to figure out who’s going make it and who’s going to die. And I submit, that the experience is really not that much different from reading Hamlet for the first time, though often enough, funnier.

Note to parents, the movie's R rating is appropriate due to the violence and greater than PG-level gore. So it certainly would not be appropriate for little kids. But it is standard fodder for the high school and college aged (and perhaps for those of us who remember these movies from our younger years as well).


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The Conspirator

MPAA (PG-13) CNS/USCCB () Roger Ebert (3 stars) Fr. Dennis (3 stars)

IMDb Listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0968264/
CNS/USCCB Review -
Roger Ebert’s Review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110414/REVIEWS/110419988

The Conspirator (directed by Robert Redford, screenplay by James Solomon, story by James Solomon and Gregory Bernstein) is about the trial of Mary Surratt for her connection in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln on the night of April 14, 1865. Mary Surratt (played in the movie by Robin Wright) had operated a Washington D.C. boarding house frequented by a number of the conspirators in the months prior to the assassination.

The case is of relevance today because it was conducted under the auspices of a military tribunal rather than civilian court in a charged atmosphere where the public was truly shocked by the horror of the crime. The crime involved not merely the assassination of President Lincoln but a conspiracy to also assassinate then Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward. That is, it was an attempt by a band of Confederate sympathizers, led by Lincoln’s assassin John Wilkes Booth, to effectively decapitate the U.S. government just 5 days after the surrender of General Robert E. Lee commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia signaling the final defeat of the South in the American Civil War after the fall of the Confederate capital of Richmond Virginia on April 1. As such, there was also a perceived need on the part of the U.S. government to demonstrate to any would-be Confederate sympathizers that the war was truly coming to an end and _any_ further resistance even in the form of sabotage or in today’s language, terrorism, was futile.

Yet, to make the point, Mary Surratt, arguably innocent, was put to death after a questionable trial by a military tribunal and a last minute serving of a writ of habeas corpus to force her retrial in a civil court was cancelled by President Andrew Johnson by the authority that had been granted the President during the Lincoln Presidency by the Habeas Corpus Act of 1863.

The movie is well written, well directed, staged and acted and is generally faithful to the historical record.
Initially, Maryland Senator Reverdy Johnson (played by Tom Wilkinson) was retained for Mary Surratt's defense.  However due to various political machinations, he ended up having to recuse himself from the case and instead asked a younger lawyer and Union combat veteran Fredrick Aiken (played by James McAvoy) to take her case. Their primary opponent was U.S. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (played by Kevin Kline) who most fervently argued that those arrested and held for the assassination of Lincoln and the attempted assassinations of Johnson and Seward be dealt with quickly and decisively "for the sake of the nation" and "the cause of [future] peace."

Many of the same issues and concerns are, of course, being raised today, with regards to the many Moslem extremists being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (and at "undisclosed locations" elsewhere throughout the world) in connection with the 9/11 terrorist attack and other possible/probable conspiracies.

Added to the mix of issues in the movie was Mary Sarrott’s Catholicism (an unpopular and mistrusted religion in the United States at the time) as well as strong suggestion that several Catholic priests were successfully hiding the whereabouts of Mary Sarrott’s son John Sarrott, Jr, who was arguably far more involved in the conspiracy to kill President Lincoln and the others than his mother was. Asked in the movie by Aiken why the priests would be protecting Mary Sarrott’s son, Mary’s Confessor replied "and expose him to this [farce of a proceeding] as well?"

Movies like this stand or fall on basis of their faithfulness to the historical record of the Mary Surratt case. As noted above, it seems to me that in this regard, Redford’s movie does very well, and leaves viewers with much to think about.


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