A GATHERING OF OLD MEN (1987) ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Volker Schlöndorff
Louis Gossett Jr., Richard Widmark, Holly Hunter,
Woody Strode, Julius Harris, Joe Seneca,
Will Patton, Tiger Haynes, Papa John Creach
This plays like that scene in "Spartacus", where everybody stands up and claims to be Spartacus. It's a movie made for television, set in Louisiana, about a bunch of black farmers who band together when a redneck armed with a shotgun winds up dead in somebody's front yard. The storytelling's spare and powerful, and it's a great showcase for a cast of aging black actors who don't play their roles as much as they embody them. Widmark plays the white sheriff whose heavy-handed tactics run into a wall of dignified resistance. Papa John Creach contributed some of the music. Alternate title: "Murder On the Bayou".
