Every now and again, I like seeing a movie that isn’t full of Hollywood BS, special effects and made up history. We saw The Conspirator a few years back (2010) in the movies and I liked it’s no BS approach to a very dramatic story in American history. I saw that is is available on Netflix and had to re-watch it. The story is set after the end of the Civil War, when President Lincoln was assassinated in Ford’s Theater in Washington DC. As any history fan knows, an intense manhunt resulted in the killing of the assassin, John Wilkes Booth, some days later and the roundup of the band of misfit co-conspirators he assembled for other roles in his deed. In addition, the woman who owned the DC home that was used as a meeting place by the conspirators, Mary Surratt, was also arrested on capital conspiracy charges and a warrant issued for her son John, who had fled to Canada. This movie re-enacts the arrest, trial and execution of Mary and the three other men who were hung with her. This has always been a dubious chapter in American history, with different opinions on whether she was guilty, whether she deliberately sacrificed herself to save her son or whether she was just swept up in the need to hang a bunch of people, especially after Booth was killed and could not be put on trial. The trial of the 4 defendants was unique in American history, as it was a military court martial of civilians, not a jury trial. The trial would have stood no chance of standing up to any sort of legal appeal in any other time period.
The Conspirator was directed by Robert Redford, who, keeps a calm and somber atmosphere right from the beginning up to the end as Mary’s guilt and inevitable execution approaches. Surratt is played by a very somber, dour and calm Robin Wright who seems to keep all of her emotions to herself, revealing very little to either her jailers, her lawyer or the military tribunal charged with determining her fate. Her arranged lawyer Frederick Aiken, played by James McAvoy, is young, somewhat naive and eventually horrified at the kangaroo court proceeding that will hang his client, apparently for the sake of publicly enacted revenge. Other luminaries of the era, including Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (Kevin Kline), Maryland Congressman Reverdy Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) and tribunal judge David Hunter (Colm Meaney) are portrayed quite well, at least as I understand the characters from history. Among the other conspirators, the Lewis Payne (AKA Powell), the man who nearly gutted Secretary of State Seward, is the most menacing. Played by Walking Dead’s Norman Reedus, his role is small but his menace is big.
There’s not much sense in talking about spoilers since anybody who took American history in school knows how this story comes out; little dramatic license is taken. The movie is quite graphic about portraying the hangings of the conspirators, based on the numerous period photos that documented the event. The entire movie has an air of authenticity; it’s a carefully staged re-creation of those events. The acting, by all of the cast, is quite good, reminding me much more of a stage play than a movie. Redford’s role as director is completely invisible; there’s no style there at all except a straightforward telling of a story that is extremely dramatic itself. This chapter of history IS drama, if ANYTHING in the real world can be. Of course, it goes without saying that it’s highly recommended for Civil War buffs, but also for anybody that wants to spend a couple hours with a real story, done well. By the way, Mary’s actual house still sits on 604 H Street in DC, in a part of town that’s now a withering Chinatown, surrounded by encroaching offices and condos. It’s a restaurant called the Wok and Roll.
