Product Review

Based on a tough and unsparing novel about the nature of racism by Pete Dexter, this TV movie offers strong performances but ultimately can't match the book's power. Dennis Hopper plays Paris Trout, a cruel, angry Southerner who thinks he still lives in the days when white men killed blacks with impunity. So, in pursuit of a debtor, he shoots the man's young sister and mother when they get in his way, assuming the law will forgive him. Instead, modern justice puts him on trial and he winds up with a lawyer (Ed Harris) who truly disdains his client. Moreover, as the lawyer works on the case, he finds himself becoming romantically involved with Paris's abused wife (Barbara Hershey). Harris has a look of suffering that is affecting, while Hershey simmers with both passion and resentment--and Hopper embodies the pure evil of unredeemable bigotry. --Marshall Fine