American Violet

Dee Roberts (Nicole Beharie, The Express) is a young mother of four living in Texas. Dee’s life is fairly ordinary; she works at a local restaurant and does what she can to get by. One day, to Dee’s complete shock, the police handcuff her and place her in jail. Initially, Dee suspects that law enforcement officials are simply going to extreme measures due to a couple of her unpaid parking tickets. It turns out that she’s actually being charged with distributing narcotics in a school zone. The crime carries with it a punishment of 16 to 25 years in prison. The District Attorney offers Dee a plea deal: if she’ll plead guilty, she’ll receive a suspended sentence of 10 years, meaning she gets to go home immediately despite having a major crime on her permanent record. Knowing that she has to get home to her children as soon as possible, Dee accepts the offer. However, she remains bitter about the great injustice done to her by the Texas legal system. With the help of her mother (Alfre Woodard, Star Trek: First Contact), a representative of the ACLU (Tim Blake Nelson, The Incredible Hulk) , and a local attorney (Will Patton, Remember the Titans), Dee seeks justice by attempting to sue the DA. —DVDverdict.com