Review of The Conspirator (2011) by Nick O — 03 May 2011

Strange considering the ghostly audience with which I watched "The Conspirator", but I'm beat to paw at my chest or my bladder (at least twice I stepped out to make sure) for any shackles keeping my patience reassured and feet to the floor. Another oddity is "The Conspirator's" readily-translatable context of one of America's biggest chills, the nearly 150-year-old murder of Abraham Lincoln. Therein lies the problem, being the History Channel afterglow that is Robert Redford's film. It lies in the hollow wake of the tragedy, which would only be troublesome if we hadn't been drowned in the material a thousand times already. We haven't, and, until Steven Spielberg's top-hat biopic hits next year, you can still tread the question why Hollywood isn't gung-ho on colonial throwbacks and answer it in the same cracked brain wave.

For sake of the title's suddenness, you should know the fact at "The Conspirator's" center is Mary Surratt (Robin Wright), an innkeeper plagued with killer accusations after records show she harbored the case's incriminators concurrent to Lincoln's shut-down bullet. The trial lawyer hired to defend her is Frederick Aiken (James McAvoy), who hardly has time to wipe war stains from his clothes before facing heat from the likes of pal Nicholas (Justin Long) and love squeeze Catherine (Alexis Bledel) for initial defense attorney Reverdy Johnson's (Tom Wilkinson) arcane decision to toss the ball in Aiken's court instead. All this is fine. The Guantanamo parallels Redford later draws are where "The Conspirator" hits a couple finite snags, though. The movie may best be reflected in a scene inside Lincoln's home shortly after his head wound, and everyone's trying from the goodness of their hearts to fix their friend and hero to no avail. "The Conspirator" is gimmicky, and the B-grade hippie ordeal of Redford's varied cast could explain its wacky post-Oscar, pre-summer release date. Cancel out that noise, and those solemn few with the knee-jerk to pay attention might just be lucky enough to experience an adept history lesson of boomerang proportions.