When a four hour miniseries is shown in its full length, it is not an attractive prospect of something to watch, but still, it was a dull Sunday afternoon and since I knew Dylan Baker quietly appreared in this film, I decided to give it a try anyhow. Amazingly, I was far more entertained and engrossed in the film than I expected, probably because of the good acting and production values. Being the network miniseries it was, this film is leaps and bounds above the usual, well, junk they have to offer. The script has a nice theatrical quality and whomever shot this film certainly knows what they are doing and picked beautiful locations to shoot it in. And the acting...for a NETWORK TV movie, this is some of the best acting you'll get from there, but what can be expected from such thespians as Jack Lemmon, the late Richard Jordan, Robert Prosky, Charles Dutton, W(illiam) H. Macy, Kevin Spacey, Peter Gallagher, and Dylan Baker, the latter four, who were still quite unknown back then. With these actors giving it all they've got, basically anything they are in would be watchable.
They don't make it absolutely perfect, though( This is after all, a movie about the murder of 14-year-old Mary Phagan and the big court case that followed with her alleged murderer(Gallagher, who gives one of his better performances, surprisingly)on trial. I think it's somewhat impossible for a TVM about a court case not to get a little bit too dramatic at times, and naturally this one does, particularly with Rebecca Miller, who plays the wife of the accused man, giving dramatic outbursts in the court room(I won't begrudge her, though. She actually does a nice job in her role)and the silly town folks, who sing hymns for some reason and have their children sing a ridiculous song about Mary Phagan dying. Like kids would even care about a court case. Nevertheless, it kept me watching it for almost its entire running time and I wasn't really bored, so I would say this one wasn't so bad.
They don't make it absolutely perfect, though( This is after all, a movie about the murder of 14-year-old Mary Phagan and the big court case that followed with her alleged murderer(Gallagher, who gives one of his better performances, surprisingly)on trial. I think it's somewhat impossible for a TVM about a court case not to get a little bit too dramatic at times, and naturally this one does, particularly with Rebecca Miller, who plays the wife of the accused man, giving dramatic outbursts in the court room(I won't begrudge her, though. She actually does a nice job in her role)and the silly town folks, who sing hymns for some reason and have their children sing a ridiculous song about Mary Phagan dying. Like kids would even care about a court case. Nevertheless, it kept me watching it for almost its entire running time and I wasn't really bored, so I would say this one wasn't so bad.