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The Conspirator  (12A)  122 mins    Where can I see this film?

Director:  Robert Redford     Screenplay:  James D Solomon     Cinematography: Newton Thomas Sigel     Original music:  Mark Isham        "One bullet killed the President.        But not one man."

In the wake of Abraham Lincoln's assassination, seven men and one woman are arrested and charged with conspiring to kill the President, the Vice-President, and the Secretary of State. The lone woman charged, Mary Surratt (Robin Wright), owns a boarding house where John Wilkes Booth and others met and planned the simultaneous attacks.  With public outrage running high, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (Kevin Kline) wants a quick conviction, and hands the assignment of defending Mary to Reverdy Johnson (Tom Wilkinson). In the ominous atmosphere of post-Civil War Washington, Johnson, a Southerner, feels unable to take the case , and hands it to a newly-minted lawyer, Frederick Aiken (James McAvoy), a 28-year-old Union war-hero.  Aiken, convinced of Mary's guilt, is reluctant to defend her before a military tribunal. But as the trial unfolds, he realizes his client may be innocent and that she is being used as bait and hostage in order to capture the only conspirator to have escaped a massive manhunt, her own son.

"Redford could have vulgarized this material. He and Wright certainly have the skills to make Mary Surratt a passionate, heroic victim. They choose not to. They require us to think our own way through the case and arrive at our own opinions, and that is the value of The Conspirator."  Roger Ebert

"The cast is genuinely impressive, and there are some brilliant performances from them."  Eye for Film

Showing:

10-Jan     Colerne

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