Sissy Spacek plays Marie Ragghianti, a single mother of three who escapes her abusive husband in Georgia, moves back to Tennessee and her mother, and gets her degree. After getting her degree, she meets old college friend Eddie Sisk (Jeff Daniels), an appointee of the new Governor, and he gets her a job in the clemency and extradition bureau. She does her job well enough that Gov. Blanton (Don Hood) eventually appoints her to the parole board. On the parole board, however, she learns there may be high-level corruption going on, with paroles and pardons being sold, as well as delays in extraditions. At every turn she's stymied, until the governor fires her. She sues for wrongful dismissal, hiring former Senate Watergate counsel Fred Thompson (playing himself). Also in the cast are Keith Szarabajka as the civil servant trying to win Marie's heart; and Morgan Freeman as a fellow Parole Board officer who not only isn't impossibly virtuous, but is in fact a bit of a bad guy.
The performances are good, especially Spacek's, and the trial scenes are particularly good, as there's little of the histrionics that generally appear in Hollywood courtrooms. In fact, the courtroom itself is pretty cramped and much less majestic-looking than in most movies. The movie is generally based on a true story, although I do wonder how much liberty was taken with that story since Ragghianti has to go through so much that it gets ridiculous by the end. The other problem with the movie is the heavy-handed music score, which makes it very obvious when Something Dramatic Is About to Happen. It was to the point that I started laughing when I heard the change in music.
Still, don't let that put you off the movie. It is a solid film.
