Jasper, Texas

In 1998, a horrific murder took place in Jasper, Texas, in which James Byrd Jr. was chained to a pickup truck by his ankles and dragged two miles to his death. Byrd was black; his killers were white. The nation was shocked both at the barbaric nature of the crime, and at the town that produced it. But Jasper was not the hotbed of racial unrest that it was painted in the media--if we're to take this heartbreaking and infuriating Showtime original movie at face value. Instead, a mostly united and basically happy town (one that had just elected its first black mayor, excellently played by Louis Gossett Jr.) was ripped apart not so much by the actual crime but by the circus--the media, political action groups, etc.--that arrived afterward to use the event to further their own purposes. The graphic dramatization of Byrd's murder is sickening, as it should be, but the film's focus is on the thoughtlessness and rapaciousness of those who would appropriate his death for their own benefit. A deliberative but powerful condemnation of such people, cogs in impersonal machinery incapable of shame, Jasper, Texas, which also boasts a fine performance by Jon Voight as the sheriff, is recommended. (M. Johanson)