This film seems great until you read the book on which it's based. The movie completely waters down the power of the book in the interest of box office. The book is a lean, mean profile of sharecroppers in the south a few decades after the Civil War. None of the characters are given names except for the dog, Sounder. I would think that the later movie (directed by Kevin Hooks, who played "the boy" in the original movie) is much better and accurate to the text. "Sourland" is a follow up to "Sounder" (the book) and makes you really think. I recommend both highly. I taught this book for a number of years to 6th grade students in East LA. Their reaction after reading the book was that the movie is much to easy on the subject of race and brings in too many "feel good" moments such as a "typical" American picnic with fried chicken and baseball which detracts from the historical reality of the period (the movie moves up the book a few decades). The music included was very "edgy" back in '72 but is passe and distracting now. If you're renting this movie thinking you're going to educate your child on the struggle of blacks in America, don't bother. It's too cleaned up. Read the book with your kids. It's not a book for 3-8th graders to read alone without guidance.
