Amazon.com video review:
Rob Reiner, who used to be more interested in personal style
as a filmmaker, continues to duck behind bland movies about important
ideas with this based-on-fact film about the embattled white
prosecutor (Alec Baldwin) who brought racist killer Byron De La
Beckwith (James Woods) to justice after 30 years of failed
attempts. Charged with the murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers,
Beckwith slimes up the film pretty well via Woods's somewhat showy
performance, while Baldwin generously assumes the usual clichés
surrounding reluctant heroes. Whoopi Goldberg is at her most stately
as Evers's widow. The whole self-important production is dogged by the
obvious thought that it might have played better (and to far more
people than it did in theaters) on television. --Tom Keogh
