'The Conspirator'

'The Conspirator' (PG-13) (2 stars)

Writer: James Solomon
Director: Robert Redford
Starring: James McAvoy, Robin Wright, Tom Wilkinson, Kevin Kline, Justin Long,
Danny Huston, Evan Rachel Wood, Colm Meaney

"The Conspirator" tells a story that I thought would not interest me and I was pretty much correct. It could have been made exciting in a way that Oliver Stone's "JFK" was. Maybe John F. Kennedy and the conspiracy behind his assassination is more fascinating material. I just found "The Conspirator as dull and generic as it's title. It comes alive in the court room scenes but when not in court it is pretty weak.

"The Conspirator" tells the story of Mary and John Surratt who were deemed responsible for the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Mary was thought to be harboring the group of men that hatched the plot to kill the President. Her son John was one of the group of men who were supposed to go on trial with Mary but John escaped. Mary then became the focus of the trial for being one of the main people responsible sort of like guilt by association. A young Civil War veteran Frederick Aiken is asked to defend Mary Surratt and the deck is stacked against him. Secretary of State Stanton and the government want to see the men and Mary hanged for the crime even though there is no concrete proof that Mary was really involved.

Frederick sees this case as a violation of Mary's civil liberties because at the time the jury was made up of government officials. Frederick thinks Mary is not getting a fair trial because of course the government officials want revenge. This all sounds more fascinating than what the film gives us. I remember back in college one of my best friends Hal Surratt told me the story of his ancestors and he told it with more spark than this movie does.

The court room scenes are very compelling and well written. The scenes outside the court room are very dull and the character of Mary Surratt is weakly written. I learned a lot about Frederick Aiken but the movie never gave me a good ideal of who Mary is. Robin Wright Penn again is very good as Mary but the screenplay never does her justice. We don't even find out anything substantial about the men involved in the assassination or anything at all about John Surratt. The movie just doesn't seem to have any energy and it never got me emotionally involved. If the screenplay did a better job of portraying Mary's character we might have felt more anger. The scenes between her and Frederick outside the court room and between Frederick and his fiancee and friends are weak.

I like Robert Redford as a director and he makes this movie visually interesting but the screenplay lets him down. In the end I felt no emotion and didn't feel for any of the characters, the movie just left me cold. I like the message of the movie and I was fascinated with how juries were made up at that time. Again what happens in the court room is compelling stuff but the characters are shallowly written. I didn't learn anything about Mary and especially not John. The movie goes through the motions without generating any heat or momentum. It should have been as effective as a movie like "JFK" was but in the end it just falls flat.