Mississippi Burning

 Gene Hackman’s death in February 2025 brought a spotlight back to one of the world’s greatest ever actors.  

At some point I will write up a career review of some of his greatest films but since it will require me to revisit some films I have not seen in many years and also catch up on a couple of blind spots like Under Suspicion, The Royals Tenebaums, and Scarecrow, I am focusing here on his 1988 civil rights drama, Mississippi Burning.

Spoilers below:

Director Alan Parker, man known for intense films like Midnight Express and (in its own way) Evita, commits the audience to another immersive in this film.  The story is based on an incident that occurred in 1964 in Mississippi but changes the name of the town and of the characters.  Three civil rights workers (two white and one African American) are murdered by members of the Klu Klux Klan because they are trying to help African Americans register to vote.  Two FBI agents are sent to investigate.  The agents are Mr. Ward, played by Willem Dafoe.  Mr. Ward is in his early 30s by the book and principled, but out of place in the Deep South.  The other is Mr. Anderson, who is much older, but is junior to Mr. Ward because he joined the FBI later in life after growing up and having served as Sheriff in a similar town.  Mr. Anderson is played by Hackman.

The dynamic here is kind of a reverse to the one in a film like Seven where a young hothead is paired with a veteran calm detective and the veteran is the one who is usually right.  Here the veteran is right a lot of the time but it is because of his unconventional methods.  When the two men go into the Sheriff’s office and Ward is pushed around by the deputy after he asks politely to see the Sheriff,Anderson gets immediate results by invading the deputy’s space (sitting on his desk) and cursing him out.   Hackman is hilarious in this scene playing the moment with a twinkle in his eye while you never doubt his words.

Brad Dourif and Michael Rooker play the two worst KKK members we see onscreen.  Rooker’s Frank Bailey wears a constant sneer, spits out just about every line has with venom, beats up a cameraman and even repeatedly kicks an African American kid.  Rooker does a great job of expressing his hatred and confidence that he can what he wants because will never be prosecuted in Mississippi since the police and the judges all share his views, even if they cannot express them quite as openly.  The problem is that the character comes off a little one-note and if there were any scenes where there was some balance to Rooker’s character they were likely cut.

Dourif as Clinton Pell, the deputy who drove the car that transported the bodies has a little more to work with.  Pell has a more simple mindset and one senses he has become this way because it is all he knows.  We see he is an ignorant husband in the first half and then late in the film the Sheriff has him beat up his wife in front of several other men to prove his loyalty to the Klan. The scene is all the more disturbing painful because he is hurting a woman who cannot defend herself not because of anger or drunkenness and more to prove he belongs.  Neither he nor the other men say a word and Parker films it with a handheld camera and no score making the scene all the more devastating. It is reminiscent of a similar (though nonviolent) scene in The Help in which Allison Janey’s character cruelly fires the maid who raised her daughter in front of her friends to ensure her social status. Both involve weak people who will do the wrong thing to impress horrible people.

Dourif is smaller and Hackman’s Anderson, although he is at least two decades older, towers over him both in stature and intellect, and gets the better of him every time their paths cross, including the audience pleasing scene in which Anderson severely beats Pell in retribution for the attack on his wife. 

Hackman’s southern accent is light at best and on occasion it disappears (as great an actor as he was, I cannot recall any film outside of Heartbreakers where he used a different voice throughout).  But his mannerisms are spot on for the setting.  When Anderson and Ward first arrive in town Anderson immediately politely waves to a couple of older men even though he does not know them.  Anderson charms his way into the hair salon and slowly gains the trust of the townspeople by relating to them as individuals.  There is a quiet scene in which Anderson softly explains how shame over actions his father took turned him into an anti-racist.  While it may not seem realistic for Anderson to confide in Ward in this moment it is necessary exposition so understand how a man of that generation and background is not as racist as the environment he comes from.

The location filming in Mississippi and Alabama is evident.  We see the effect of the searing heat on the characters.  Parker shows us dusty streets, poor neighborhoods full of shacks, a segregated diner, and an extended scene in which several FBI agents enter a swamp in their suits.  

Dafoe has almost as large a role as Hackman as Ward continually recruits more and more agents to town but the efforts yield little results.  Ward shows his tough when Anderson tries to intimidate him and Ward very quickly turns the tables on him.  At that point, following a suspended sentence of several Klan members who attacked an African American neighborhood, Ward realizes that a change of tactic is needed as the Klan members would need to be charged for a federal crime (ie civil rights violations) as opposed to a statewide crime (murder) where given the setting they were unlikely to face any real consequences.  Ward quietly lets Anderson take the lead and while we do not see them planning, Parker surprises us by showing the plans being carried out.  The agents engage in sneak attacks to turn the KKK member against each other.  In one scene scheming an African American FBI enforcer (chillingly played by Badja Djola) falsely threatens to castrate the mayor (played as a casual racist by L. R. Ermy following up his intense role as an abusive drill sergeant the year before in Stanley Kubrick’s film, Full Metal Jacket.

The film has numerous scenes of the Klan attacking African Americans and/or their properties.  These scenes are necessarily uncomfortable to watch, especially a moment of  Rooker’s Bailey repeatedly kicking a young boy on the ground.  I recognize these things happened often without consequence but I felt to show so much of it was excessive and I questioned whether the Klan would have gone to such lengths since doing so was only bringing more and more law enforcement which is what they were trying to avoid.

Frances McDormand has an early role as Mrs. Pell.  Like Anderson Mrs. Pell loves the South but does is not racist though we never learn why.  She is smart enough to both know her standing but also recognize that the treatment her husband lays on the local African American community is wrong.  The moment where she tells Anderson what her husband has done she is looking away into a dark hallway.  There is a real spark between McDormand and Hackman but apart from some light affection they never act on it which is a smart move.  If they had a scene in bed together the film might become about that rather than the larger battle they are both fighting.

Parker and his longtime editor Gerald Hambling (who won an Academy Award for his work on this film) make an innovative choice near the end.  We see several of the Klan characters arrested and individually a post script comes up on each one of them outside the courthouse indicating their sentences.  Often a film will end right after that but the Hambling cuts back to show a few scenes of Anderson right before he leaves town.  The trials and sentencing would have occurred far later but dramatically it works to show how the town is going to start to heal now that the worst members are gone.

Mississippi Burning is a powerful film that makes a big statement as Parker’s films always do.  Perhaps the message is laid on a little too melodramatically but the film strives successfully to recreate a disturbing setting and show one costly, but successful battle to turn the wheels of justice.  ***