Heavens Fall

I had the pleasure of seeing the world premiere of Heavens Fall at the Austin's Paramount Theatre as part of the SXSW film festival. It is a powerful film about the great injustices that occurred during the infamous Scottsboro trial of nine black men accused of raping two white women in Alabama in the 1930s.

While this story has been told before in a 1976 NBC TV movie, Judge Horton and the Scottsboro Boys (which I haven't seen and which I suspect would be pretty difficult, if not impossible to find on VHS or DVD today) and more recently in the powerful PBS documentary, Scottsboro: An American Tragedy, it's a story worth telling again for each new generation.

A film like recent Best Picture winner, Crash, reminds us that racism still exists in our society today. A film like Heavens Fall provides historical context and reminds us of the slow progress that has been made since the days of the Jim Crow South. This film reminds me of other recent films that have reminded us of some of the other tragic episodes of past racism such as Mississippi Burning, Amistad, and, particularly, the marvelous film, Rosewood. As with all films of this genre, some events and characters have been fictionalized in an attempt to capture of the spirit of the story rather than all of the detail.

Heavens Fall features first-rate performances by Timothy Hutton as the Jewish New York lawyer who travels to Alabama to defend the 9 black men, David Strathairn as the the trial judge, and Bill Sage as the prosecutor. The movie moves a bit slowly. The lead characters, including the prosecutor, are presented as human beings taking away from the stereotyping of white southerners which is quite easy in this type of film. It's occasionally a little predictable and clichéd - something almost unavoidable with this genre. Ironically, I think that more could have been done to develop the African-American characters. The accused are not really presented in great depth and the one black character, a journalist, seems a bit extraneous to the plot of the story. Still, basically a good job is done in presenting the main characters as human beings struggling for truth and justice as they define it in a highly imperfect world.

At our world premiere screening, the director and many of the actors were present and spoke about the making of the film. Timmothy Hutton was unable to attend, but as the director and other actors were speaking to the audience, Hutton phoned into to the director's cell phone to receive loud cheers from the audience and answer a few questions via cellphone to microphone. The film was clearly a labor of love by the director and actors. I hope that it finds a distributor and is seen widely, because Americans need to see the realities of their history in order to learn from it.

This movie was good overall with excellent performances from the cast and the cinematography was excellent. The script however could have been better as I would have liked it to go into more details about the other defendants but it was well written otherwise.

this film is awesome, the story is breathtaking, the actors wonderful. I saw it at the Midwest Screening and the theater was completely spellbound. It has the heart and soul of "To Kill a Mockingbird". The scenery is so beautiful and interesting. The storyline is inspiring. No wonder Timothy Hutton chose to take this role, his character is smart, courageous and in this current political climate he is a hero for us. The rest of the cast wonderful, realistic and also multidimensional. The historical representation is authentic and yet very creative. You leave the movie inspired. What more can you ask for? Thank you for making such a thoughtful and entertaining film!! I know it will go far.

There is much about this film that makes it a good film, the cast are all very good and seem perfect in their respective roles. There are many different emotions and ways of thinking being portrayed and this is all done really well. In many ways this film reminds me of 'A time to kill', but it is shocking to think that the events portrayed really happened, and not that far into the past either. The racism and segregation that existed in the southern states of the USA are in many ways worse than apartheid in South Africa. To think that otherwise intelligent, moral and well mannered people can have such idiotic views regarding people of a different colour is astounding and America should be deeply ashamed of this. I wonder what some of the real people as portrayed in this film now think of their Black President? I would recommend this film to anyone who enjoyed 'A time to kill' or 'To kill a mocking bird'.

Movies such as HEAVENS FALL are poignant reminders of the cruel history of this country that still makes us bow our heads in shame. The story by writer/director Terry Green is a sensitive recreation of the re-trial of an African American man (one of nine) condemned to death in Scottsboro, Alabama in 1931 for the supposed gang rape of two white women, a trial with an all-white seated jury who took only 20 minutes to deliberate and convict the young men. It is a study of racism in the South in the 1930s and while the viewer would hope that the ending is triumphant, the story quietly fades with a particle decency represented by a New York trial lawyer and a sympathetic judge who opened the door to the beginnings of seated African American jurists. It is powerful in content: it is magnificent movie making.

Samuel Leibowitz (Timothy Hutton) travels to Alabama form his offices in New York in 1933, to represent the nine condemned men after a Supreme Court ruling opened the door for a retrial. Leibowitz meets the prosecuting attorney Thomas Knight, Jr. (Bill Sage), more devoted to his potential career advancement than to his role as prosecutor, and the judge assigned to the case - James Horton (David Strathairn). Leibowitz interviews the nine condemned men and Haywood Patterson (B.J. Britt) is the first to be re-tried. Careful investigation uncovers the shaky case that convicted the men and Leibowitz, with the aid of the attorneys who pleaded the case before the Supreme Court, attempt to gain a racially mixed jury without success. Sent to cover the trial is a young reporter from Chicago (Anthony Mackie) who witnesses the racial hatred in the South first hand. His presence adds credibility to the proceedings. During the trial Leibowitz calls as witnesses the two women who made the false accusations - Victoria Price (LeeLee Sobieski) and Ruby Bates (Azura Skye) - and despite evidence clearing the nine men the trial ends in defeat. But that is only the beginning of a story that persists to this day. This is a true story about how racial hate tore the South apart in the 1930s, but it is also the story of how a few honest people tried to alter history.

The cast is uniformly excellent, with Strathairn, Hutton, Skye, and Sage giving potent performances. The climate of the times is well captured by the cinematography of Paul Sanchez, the costumes by Lisa Davis, the fine editing by Suzy Elmiger, and the simple but effective musical score by Tony Llorens. This is a film everyone should see, not only because of the need to re-examine this part of our history, but also because it is such a fine example of American cinema. Grady Harp