The film opens with the loud, angry sound of a club rattling along prison cell gates in order to wake up the inmates. It's a disturbing sound because it's so inhumane, and less than 10 minutes later, the riots have begun yet you feel like something has been cut out. The film needed to be a two-part TV drama rather than a 90 minutes movie of the week because the story was very important to tell in its entirety.
A great cast led by Charles Durning, Henry Darrow and Morgan Freeman dramatizes a good percentage of the first, although names have been changed and some characters combined. But what you get is a real gist of the issues here, especially the opportunistic ones are people outside the prison system who decide to use the riots for their own benefit.
Not all of the white characters are insincere. In fact, the character played by Durning ( who ironically appeared in "Dog Day Afternoon" where the famous Attica chant was heard) is quite sincere. Freeman, in one of his early leading parts, is excellent as a very soft-spoken inmate, offering wise advice to the brilliant David Harris who really gain sympathy by explaining how he wanted to help black youth after leaving his home and how that curtain towards his dream was pulled closed on him.
The film has a nice flow to it, showing more of the personal side of the story rather than the predicted violence, and that makes it easier to get into once you start to watch it. Of course, there are elements that are very disturbing because the outcome has already been written through the headlines and the truth of how it ended. You'd think that there would be an element of hope in prison reform after this incident, but that's obviously not been impacted by how the real situation unfolded. You see the best and worst sides of humanity from all perspectives, and at least the basic honesty makes an impact even though I would not have minded this being an hour longer.
A great cast led by Charles Durning, Henry Darrow and Morgan Freeman dramatizes a good percentage of the first, although names have been changed and some characters combined. But what you get is a real gist of the issues here, especially the opportunistic ones are people outside the prison system who decide to use the riots for their own benefit.
Not all of the white characters are insincere. In fact, the character played by Durning ( who ironically appeared in "Dog Day Afternoon" where the famous Attica chant was heard) is quite sincere. Freeman, in one of his early leading parts, is excellent as a very soft-spoken inmate, offering wise advice to the brilliant David Harris who really gain sympathy by explaining how he wanted to help black youth after leaving his home and how that curtain towards his dream was pulled closed on him.
The film has a nice flow to it, showing more of the personal side of the story rather than the predicted violence, and that makes it easier to get into once you start to watch it. Of course, there are elements that are very disturbing because the outcome has already been written through the headlines and the truth of how it ended. You'd think that there would be an element of hope in prison reform after this incident, but that's obviously not been impacted by how the real situation unfolded. You see the best and worst sides of humanity from all perspectives, and at least the basic honesty makes an impact even though I would not have minded this being an hour longer.