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A Winning Courtroom Drama

Orlando Weekly | March 27, 2007

If you ignore the outsized accents (both Southern and New York Jewish) employed by the central characters and put aside the weariness you feel for period pieces that make this country's racist past seem quaintly historic, Heavens Fall emerges as a winning courtroom drama whose grasp exceeds its reach. Writer-director Terry Green attempts to humanize the stuck-in-the-1800s mindset of the state's attorney and judge in charge of the trial of nine young African-American men (the "Scottsboro boys") wrongly accused of raping a girl on a train. He does so by having the officials "get along" with Samuel Liebowitz, the noted New York defense attorney who took on the boys' case. The real drama here is the trial itself. The outcome is no surprise, but the diligent and brilliant legal work Liebowitz does on behalf of the accused is the movie's heartwarming strength.

Tags: Heavens Fall, Terry Green

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