Friday, June 17, 2011

'The Conspirator' review: Aftermath of an assassination

Civilian detainees held in solitary, hooded, facing military tribunals ? their rights abridged because the nation has been shocked by a historic act of violence, and is terrified that others are on the way.

Welcome to America, 1865.

Set in the immediate aftermath of Abraham Lincoln?s assassination, this is ?The Conspirator,? all about how a traumatized nation tried to find closure to a tragedy, and peace of mind about a surprising threat.

And since it?s directed by Robert Redford ? well, it?s not really about the past at all.

Instead, Redford ? whose last directorial effort, the awkwardly talky ?Lions for Lambs,? looked at the war in Afghanistan ? clearly wants us to think about our modern war on terror, and how in our pursuit of villains we may be vandalizing our own principles.

The analogy to 9/11 is an imperfect one.

The conspirators in the Lincoln assassination were all citizens (and the Supreme Court affirmed ? belatedly ? that their rights had been abridged). Nor were there subsequent attacks that kept the nation constantly on edge. (Other heinous plots ? including a primitive kind of biological warfare ? turned out to be mere fantasy.)

Yet Redford?s intent is clear, and his point ? about the value of our Constitution, and the price of national security ? worthy of discussion. It always has been ? ever since Benjamin Franklin first observed ?Those who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.?

Too bad then, that Redford, never a visual filmmaker, can?t give this film any snap. Staged flatly on obvious sets, it has the cramped, low-budget look of those docudramas that used to abound on ?70s TV: Faithful recreations of national crises or military trials that ended up being assigned as homework in middle school.

Luckily, Redford always has appreciated performers, and he has a very fine one here in Robin Wright, playing the chief character, Mary Surratt, in whose boarding house the assassins met. Was she part of the plot? So said the government ? and put her on trial for her life.

Wright, who has been doing great and largely unrecognized work for years, is terrific as the hard, handsome, difficult defendant, as is James McAvoy as her reluctant defense counsel. Their back-and-forth conversations, and McAvoy?s attempts to get her a fair hearing in court, are the heart of the story.

And there are some other good performances surrounding it. Like Kevin Kline as coldly determined Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, resolved to punish somebody ? anybody ? for the president?s murder. And Evan Rachel Wood as Surratt?s daughter, caught between obedience and worry.

Working together, with only a few false notes (one being Justin Long as a barely convincing officer), they help push the drama past its stage-bound, watch-it-it?s-good-for-you roots, and turn it into something more ? a story of justice, a tale of vengeance.

And an illustration of how the two rarely sit together in the courtroom.

Ratings note: The film contains violence.

The Conspirator (PG-13) Roadside Attractions (123 min.) Directed by Robert Redford. With Robin Wright, James McAvoy, Kevin Kline. Now playing in New Jersey.
Stephen Whitty's rating: THREE STARS

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