A very fine cast is wasted on this high handed and very stereotypical look at the civil rights movement in 1961 Mississippi. The film revisits disparate incidents of the era, placing them all under the eyes of a rebellious young boy, ably played by The Hurricane's Vicellous Reaon Shannon, living in the fictional town of Quinlan, Mississippi. In open rebellion from his conservative father (Danny Glover, overacting at times), our young hero witnesses the Woolworth's lunch counter sit in, the work of "outside agitators," the Freedom Riders, and the efforts made to register blacks to vote--events which eventually land him in deep trouble with the law and his family. A fine premise indeed, but a much better film would have avoided depicting every white as a sneering, snarling, ultra violent redneck automaton bent on killing, maiming and otherwise humiliating blacks. Directed by Phil Alden Robinson, who made a fine, subtly nuanced film out of Field Of Dreams, this made-for-TV movie becomes so cartoonish that the real human struggles of the civil rights movement are trivialized in the process. Clearly well intentioned and well acted, but pedagogic and sermonic in the extreme, this is not a necessary purchase. (R. Ray)[DVD Review—Feb. 7, 2006—Warner, 117 min., not rated, $19.98—Making its first appearance on DVD, 2000's Freedom Song sports a nice-for-TV transfer and Dolby Digital surround sound, but no extras. Bottom line: this bare-bones release of a preachy TV movie is still not a necessary purchase.]
Freedom Song
Warner, 150 min., not rated, VHS: $71.99 Vol. 15, Issue 4
Freedom Song
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