A Gathering of Old Men

In this tv drama, a group of men band together to avoid arrest. It's a case of strength in numbers when a white farmer gets shot while bullying a black worker. In the deep South, the man who shot in self-defense would probably get the death penalty, so instead, while he hides, all the other workers pass the word among their families to bring their shotguns and gather at Louis Gossett Jr.'s house (where the dead body lays). One by one, they all claim "I'm Spartacus" in front of the sheriff, Richard Widmark. Ironically, Woody Strode is one of the faux confessors, and he was in Spartacus thirty years earlier. They're joined by Holly Hunter, who also claims she shot the man to protect the men who've been working her family's farm for generations.

Since we know he was a passionate civil rights activist in real life, and we know he got tired of being portrayed as the opposite on the screen, I don't know why Richard Widmark would take his role. All he does is portray a one-dimensional bigot who slaps black men while questioning them. I wouldn't really recommend this movie unless you love Holly Hunter. If your feelings are any less potent, she'll grate on your nerves from start to finish. I understand the moral of the story, but it probably would have made a better 20-minute short than a 90-minute feature.

The cast of "A Gathering of Old Men" is quite impressive for a made for TV movie, with Lou Gossett, Holly Hunter and Richard WIdmark, among others.

The story is set in rural Louisiana and when it begins, a nasty white guy is tracking down a black man and he intends to kill him. However, the victim manages to get a shotgun and he manages to kill the attacker. Because the local Cajuns are a very racist lot, there are fears that they'll start hanging black men...using the clearly justified killing as a justification. As for the local Sheriff (Widmark), he doesn't want any lynchings...but he is a racist and a brute to boot. As for the black community and the white landlady (Hunter), they ALL claim to have killed the guy...making it impossible to arrest anyone. How will this all end?

The film has some good acting and is interesting, albeit a bit talky. But the ending isn't great, as the fate of the killer is never really determined....just the reaction of his black neighbors. Odd...but still worth seeing.

In the Louisiana sugarcane fields, white farmer Beau Boutan is chasing a black man Charlie. Charlie seeks shelter at the home of Mathu (Louis Gossett Jr.) and Beau is shot to death. Candy Marshall (Holly Hunter) arrives to see Mathu with a shot gun. She gathers a group of black locals to defend Mathu and tries to claim the shooting for herself. Her family used to own the vast land. The local whites are mostly Cajuns who leased the land from Marshall. The group of elderly blacks start claiming the shooting for themselves. Lou Dimes (Will Patton) tries to talk Candy down. Sheriff Mapes (Richard Widmark) investigates the shooting with too many willing suspects. Beau's progressive brother Gilbert returns home from college urging caution but anger is rising.

I need the movie to start with a definitive year. The book is supposed to be set in the 70s. The lack of a date leaves me questioning whether it's 1987. The decade makes a big difference. The list of black actors is stacked. Louis Gossett Jr. isn't even the best. The best is probably Joe Seneca. The Cajun side needs better actors. They are mostly a bunch random white thugs. The story has potential but the tension is limited.

It's 1987 and there are still parts of the Deep South that haven't quite digested the changes that civil rights have brought. One of them is this bayou parish in Cajun Louisiana where a man who was from a noted white Cajun family was busy running down a black man for sport. Out from a window emerges a shotgun and he's killed.

The woman who leases the property on which most of these black people share crop is Holly Hunter and she means well, but has a patronizing attitude towards 'her' people. The man from whose house the shotgun was fired from is Lou Gossett.

But shotguns leave no forensics and as Gossett's contemporaries gather all with shotguns all recently fired any one of them could have done the deed. And as the movie unfolds they all give rather good motives for the crime.

Sheriff Richard Widmark has to sort it all out and keep at bay an element in the white community that hasn't quite accepted civil rights.

A Gathering of Old Men features a bunch of fine performances by some black actors already qualified for Social Security and Lou Gossett who is made up to look like one. The ending in terms of the crime itself and Widmark's handling of the case might surprise you, but I think it's a just one, given the times.

A white man has been shot in front of a black man's house in Louisiana. From the racial attitudes and the houses the blacks live in, I would have said this was from the 50s or earlier, but the police car is like the car I drove in Driver's Ed class in 1976, and a hearse is a 1965 Cadillac.

Candy owns the land where many of the blacks live, and she claims she shot the white man, while Mathu says he did it. Candy knows what is going to happen, and every elderly black man in the area who has a gun is dispatched to Mathu's place, for a showdown with the local sheriff that is reminiscent of the memorable scene from the original 'Spartacus'. They can't arrest all these men, and they can't all be guilty. Meanwhile, the dead man's relatives want their own brand of justice.

There was a lot of good acting in this movie, and so many of the characters seemed like real people, not movie characters. This was true of Candy's white relatives, the dead man's father Fix and his family, and the blacks who came to Mathu's rescue and their families. And the movie was quite funny at times. Some women didn't want their husbands doing something dangerous, but the men were determined to do their duty. Several women showed no fear whatsoever as they sat in front of Mathu's house, and they displayed an attitude that could have easily gotten them shot in the real South of the 1950s. Racial hatred had apparently mellowed somewhat by this time.

There were several deep discussions about such subjects as blacks coming home from World War II (one man wore what appeared to be his army uniform) and preservation of people's heritage.

Holly Hunter was wonderful. In one scene it was obvious from her facial expression that her character was lying. And she showed a strong determination to protect 'her' people. She had been raised by an aunt and uncle after her parents died, an experience that helped make her strong. Her relatives were determined to let her do the job without getting involved themselves. Maybe they were afraid to.

I didn't recognize Lou Gossett, but he is always good. In one scene I thought I saw him, but obviously that wasn't him, because he was Mathu.

This was really worth seeing.