Over the years I’ve seen a lot of films about racism or persecution toward a specific race of people. Mississippi Burning is one of the best I’ve ever seen on this topic. On par with 12 Years a Slave, The Color Purple, and the television shows Roots and The Underground Railroad. It made me mad back then when I saw it for the first time back in 1988 and when I watched it recently for this review I was still equally mad. This kind of treatment of people is appalling.

A few young civil rights activists are traveling through Mississippi when they are run off the road by a group of vehicles.  Men get out of the vehicles, and go up to the car and shoot the young men in the car. Among them are two Jewish college students and a Black man who are trying to get the Black vote out for local elections. This doesn’t sit well with the local Ku Klux Klan. These men don’t want Black men and women to vote or have a voice in local elections. They want things to stay the same and the status quo is white power in rural Mississippi. 

The FBI gets word of the disappearance of these young men and sends two Agents, Alan Ward (Willem Dafoe) and Rupert Anderson (Gene Hackman) One is a younger newer agent who has tough skin and doesn’t want to let these men get away with what they’ve done. The other is an older agent who is from Mississippi and knows how things work in the Deep South. Their processes seem to be at odds with each other but they put their pride aside for the greater good and to get answers.

There is a mystery element to this film that draws out the story and delivers drama like nothing I’ve seen before. The Agents have to get the locals to cooperate with them in the investigation while also trying to interview local law enforcement,  government officials, and men and women in local establishments like diners, and hair salons. The locals aren’t easy to crop regarding the investigation. Both of the Agents have to finagle their way into this community that doesn’t want them there. It’s a very difficult task for these two men.

The screenplay by Chris Gerolmo is layered and nuanced. It starts as this straightened mystery but as the film moves forward some relationships form and fracture among the culprits who are under investigation. These two aspects of the story allow it to grow as the intensity grows. The viewers start to see the investigation open up as the men start to fold under pressure. They also start making mistakes as they try to cover their tracks. The script is one of the strengths of the movie.

Another strength of this film is its score, composed by Trevor Jones. The score has a handful of notes that are used over and over again but they are great. These notes let the people watching know that things are getting intense and lead to drama throughout the movie. The rest of the score is very good as well but these specific notes bring something to this story and make it much more exciting for those watching at home or wherever they’re watching the movie.

Alan Parker who is known for more musical films has occasionally made a great drama in his career. The best of those is this film. He touches on events that are hot-button topics in our country that still resonate today. In the 80s it was as big of an issue as it is today regarding some deaths in recent years across the country. He gets a great script, score, and actors to turn this movie into a moving Depiction of how terrible this time was in America. The Civil Rights movement was not an easy time in our country for anyone alive at the time. Parker infuses a lot of things together to make a great film back in 1988. 

With all the other parts of this movie that are so great there also must come the performances by its two leads played by Willem Dafoe and Gene Hackman. Both are great actors in their own right but acting opposite each other brings them to another level. They both give different kinds of performances in the film. One, Dafoe, is more serious and intense while the other, Hackman, is more relaxed and has more room to roam as a character. Both are superb though in a very important film. 

The main actors must also have a supporting cast that brings out their performances. And the supporting cast is second to none in this film. Led by three-time Academy Award winner Frances McDormand as a local hairdresser and the wife of the police Chiefs Deputy. She is so good as this woman caught in the middle between these men she’s known her whole life and these men who are trying to do the right thing. The supporting cast also has  Brad Douriff, as that aforementioned deputy, R Lee Ermey,  as the town mayor, Michael Rooker, as one of the murderers, Stephen Tobolowski, as the head of the KKK, and many others. This cast was stacked from top to bottom. 

Mississippi Burning came out at a time when the country wasn’t dealing too much with the subject matter depicted in the movie but ever since things have changed. The race issues in this country have intensified ever since the film has come out. Alan Parker made a movie that resonates in our society more than ever. The cast led by the two main actors Dafoe and Hackman is superb and the supporting cast has also delivered the goods in this film. The script is very good and gets as much from the cast as possibly could be imagined. The score by Jones is like the icing on top of the cake in this movie. A great score can make a difference regarding how a film is perceived by the audience watching, and this one is great. This movie has risen in popularity because of the subject matter and the filmmakers and everybody involved should be proud of what they accomplished with this film.

5 stars

Dan Skip Allen