Cultures clash as a pair of FBI agents invade a small town in Mississippi to investigate the recent disappearance of two white civil rights workers and their black companion. Agents Anderson and Ward work against each other more frequently than they work together as they battle to find the truth in an a hostile and increasingly volatile environment. Agent Ward is twenty years younger than Anderson, but has risen higher in the FBI hierarchy through an idealistic adherence to protocol. Agent Anderson joined the FBI late in life, after years of working as a small town sheriff in a rural Mississippi border town. Anderson and Ward seek to overcome the formidable challenge posed by a conspiracy of silence, hatred, and bigotry from diametrically opposed backgrounds and perspectives, but their respect for each other grows as they discover that neither has an exclusive hold on the truth. The evolution of understanding between the southern-bred, obstinate veteran agent and his northern-born partner are a microcosm of the nation’s potential for hope in the face of brutal and unyielding efforts to resist. —IMDb
An advertising gofer-turned-writer and director, Alan Parker began his film career through his association with producer David Puttnam, another ad man with cinematic aspirations, who hired Parker to write the screenplay for the preteen romance Melody (1971). After a stint directing television commercials and short films for the BBC, Parker made his first movie, Bugsy Malone, in 1976. He joined the front ranks of young filmmakers two years later with the fact-based thriller Midnight Express, a brilliant and brutal retelling of the experiences of a young American who escaped from a Turkish prison where he had been incarcerated for drug possession. Both an exposé of government corruption and an indictment of American pomposity, it earned lavish acclaim and a number of honors, including a Best Director Oscar nomination for Parker.
The director followed this success with the megahit Fame in 1980. A box-office smash, it spawned a long-running TV series and became a fixture in the American… read more
Baseball is the only game where a black man can raise a stick at a white man without causing a riot.
I remember first watching this when i was about 8 or 9 years old. I disliked white people for like a week and didn't talk to my white friends at school.
Why Brad Douriff is not more well known is so fucking annoying. So is intolerance.
I'm really disturbed I was shown this in highschool without being told it's FBI white people propaganda o.o;;;
