Review of The Conspirator (2011) by 3Guys 1 — 16 Mar 2012

After searching though my On Demand menu I fell upon The Conspirator. The fact that it was directed by Robert Redford was the first selling point and then came my interest in Abe. I do not remember much hype about this film so I was hoping to be surprised.

Based on true events the movie starts off with 2 soldiers, Frederick Aiken(James McAvoy) and Nicholas Baker(Justin Long) in a ditch, fighting in the Civil War. Fast forward 2 years these same 2 soldiers are at a party the night of Lincoln's assassination as the war begins to wind down. The authorities gather the suspects and continue to seek John Wilkes Booth and John Surrat, who have escaped capture. Boothe is soon killed in a firefight with authorities but John Surrat is still on the loose.

7 men and 1 women are charged with conspiracy to kill the President, Vice President and Secretary of State and newly appointed lawyer Frederick Aiken has the dubious task of defending Mary Surrat(Robin Wright), the one women to stand trial for the aforementioned plot. Aiken soon realizes that his client may be innocent of the charges but is being used as bait to capture the one that got away, John Surrat(Johnny Simmons).

The trial is a military tribunal and all of the Washington elite are looking for swift and harsh judgement to put this to rest and save the Union, but in doing so they have forgone the laws in which this nation was built on, Mary has no chance and Frederick Aiken is all that stands between her and a noose. Frederick does all he can to save her and in trying, loses his status in the city and loses his fiance in the process.

The Conspirator is a bit on the slow side and at times, it is tough to stay awake, but it is informative and a lesson in history. McAvoy and Wright were decent in their roles but I was most impressed with Kevin Kline who played the Secretary of War, Edward Stanton. I was also impressed with Tom Wilkinson who played Reverdy Johnson, a righteous Senator and Aiken's mentor. Robin Wright seemed to over act in certain scenes, like she was playing Princess Buttercup from The Princess Bride, which she was great in, but as a whole the cast was okay. For you Walking Dead fan's Norman Reedus has a small part and for you Northern Exposure fans, John Cullum has a small part in this feature. I am a fan of both but I thought seeing Cullum was strange, he was old in Northern Exposure.

The most impressive part of the film was the history lesson. I continue to learn important lessons about our history and unlearn the manipulated text of my childhood. We have always learned that Boothe killed Lincoln but I had never learned that the trial was such a farce. There are points in our young history that I am certainly not proud of and it seems that these inalienable rights are far from inalienable. The movie was average, the acting was average, but I was still glad I watched it.