Everything Nonfiction

Review of Methland

Review of Methland by Nick Reding
Rating ****

The story told in Methland concerns the impact that the drug methamphetamine has had on the lives of the people of one small town in America. The town the author chose to highlight is Oelwein, Iowa. But the negative circumstances attributed to meth use in Oelwein are the same in countless towns and cities across the country. The author could easily have written the same book by focusing on any number of similar towns by simply interchanging characters.

The author opens the book with a scene of him looking down on Oelwein after departing Chicago's O'Hare International Airport en route to San Francisco. From the air, Oelwein is nothing more than a few crossing streets and a patchwork of farm fields. The rest of the book is an attempt to look at the town in a much more detailed manner, with the meth problem serving as a plot device. This is a story with many perspectives. First, there are the addicts. These are the first people we meet. Then there are the suppliers, whom more often than not are also addicts themselves. Then there are those in law enforcement whose job it is to find and dismantle the meth labs and lock up the men and woman who run them. Along the way are an assortment of other equally impacted people: the family and friends of the addicts, the lawyers, the politicians, even the pharmacists and clerks who find themselves an important part of the equation.

There are many characters in this book. Some are featured more than others. You get to know a little about all of them. Some of the stories that stood out for me included that of Roland Jarvis, who was disfigured in a methlab explosion in the basement of his mother's house. There is the story of Lori Arnold, sister of actor Tom Arnold, who turned from casual user to major supplier to convicted felon. When the author compares Lori's life as a low wage earner with little opportunity to her life as a high rolling meth producer, it's not hard to see how someone could be drawn to make that choice.

The author calls meth an American drug. It is a drug derived from a chemical process using easily accessible ingredients. That's why they're called meth labs. But it's the effect the drug has on the user that makes it an American drug. One of the characteristics of the drug is that it allows users to work for long periods of time, at high levels, with little or no rest. Add to this the fact that the drug can be made in small quantities almost anywhere, including riding on a motorcycle, and it's easy to see why meth has become an epidemic.

With so many viewpoints to cover, the book reads more like a series of vignettes than a story with a beginning, middle, and end. The book really didn't come together for me until the very end. This is where the author summarizes all that he has learned; spells out what needs to be done and what has hampered law enforcement's efforts to date; and finally brings together all of the loose threads.

The book has already made some best nonfiction lists, so the author doesn't need any help from me. But it made my list as well.

Jessica Watson

As a writer, I'm always looking for great stories. Sometimes the stories come from the distant past. Other times the story involves a more recent event. For the past several weeks I've been following one story that is occurring right now and will not have a conclusion for another seven or eight months. As I write this post on my laptop, sitting in the comfort of my kitchen, sixteen-year old Jessica Watson is in the middle of the Pacific ocean. She is a month and a half into her attempt to become the youngest person to sail solo around the globe.

One of the neat things about this journey is that you can follow Jessica through postings on her blog and a tracker on her web site. I've been checking in every couple of days to see how she's doing. The picture below is from one of her recent posts. I've enjoyed reading her posts about squalls, rough seas, visits from birds, and her daily routine. One recent post told the story about how after several unsuccessful attempts to catch a fish she finally succeeded, only to have a much larger fish take her catch from her.

One of my favorite stories of all time is the story of Magellan's attempt to circumnavigate the globe. He didn't make it, though a few members of his original crew did. While Jessica may not be facing some of the dangers that Magellan did, her journey is not without risk. In a week or two she will be rounding the southern tip of South America. The waters in this region are some of the most dangerous in the world. So I thought I'd write this post so that others can follow her progress and wish her luck.

December view from the cockpit Flying (Windows 7 theme)

This month's view from the cockpit is another Windows 7 theme. This one is called Flying. To use this theme, click on the image below to download the file. Once the file is downloaded, just double click on the themepack file.

This will be my last post to this section until I return to the cockpit, which I hope won't be too long.

Review of Every Little Step

Review of Every Little Step directed by James D. Stern and Adam Del Deo
Rating *****

I added this documentary to my queue based solely on the brief synopsis I read online, which basically said that it was about the auditioning process for a revival of the musical A Chorus Line. I haven't seen the play or the movie version, but I thought it sounded like an interesting premise. Sort of a Dancing With The Stars meets American Idol. The film, however, is about much more than just the auditioning process. It's also about the creative forces behind the original A Chorus Line and the genesis behind its creation.

Turns out that the whole thing started with the title and a simple idea. Michael Bennett, who was one of the co-creators and a dancer himself, decided to tape a group of dancers who agreed to tell their personal stories. He had the title A Chorus Line before the recordings even began. The musical evolved from the transcripts of the recordings.

The documentary inter-cuts the recent auditions with audio clips from the original recordings, interviews with some of the creators past and present, and archival footage from some of the original cast members. The end result is a compelling film that works on many different levels. You don't have to be a dancer or a fan of musicals to get something out of this film. Anyone can relate to the struggles the dancers go through. We all compete on some level whether it be for a job or for business. We've all experienced success and failure.

Of the many auditions that are shown throughout the film, Jason Tam's audition for the part of Paul is worth the price of admission. You won't be able to take your eyes off the screen.

With three thousand people competing for just twenty or so spots, you know that there is going to be some disappointment. But in the end, you root for those who make the cut. They each deserved to be there. Their joy is genuine and you you know what it took to get there.

The DVD had some extra interviews and an audio commentary, which is rare for documentaries. I can't imagine anyone not liking this film.

Review of The Blindside

Review of The Blindside written and directed by John Lee Hancock
Rating ****

This is one of the better sports films I've seen in a while. The last football related film I saw was Invinciblewith Mark Wahlberg. That story was also based on a true story, but the true story aspect was lame. The main character's main claim to fame was that he played a couple of games on special teams. The climax of the film was when the main character scores a touchdown on a fumble recovery after a kickoff. The filmmakers glossed over the fact that the resulting touchdown was nullified because he had stepped out of bounds.

This film has the same underlying theme of all sports films where an underdog overcomes obstacles to achieve success. The difference here is that the main character, Michael Oher, not only rises above poverty to become an NFL football player, but that he's currently starting and playing for the Baltimore Ravens.

The film is based on the best selling book The Blind Sideby Michael Lewis. Besides being a compelling story, this film shows what can happen when someone is given opportunity. In this case, the opportunity comes from an unlikely source, an attractive white woman and her close-knit family. Sandra Bullock's portrayal of Leigh Anne Tuohy is every bit as good as Julia Roberts's performance in Erin Brockovich. The supporting characters do a fine job. I give a lot of credit to Tim McGraw for playing a role that is so far removed from his music career and past film roles that he is unrecognizable as the person we've seen in the past. Quinton Aaron, who portrays Michael Oher, is not asked to do much beyond play the role of gentle giant. But he does it well.

The film earns credence by not shying away from a controversy that I'm sure was covered in the book. The controversy concerns the possibility that the family's altruism had more to do with their efforts to have Michael Oher play for their Alma mater Old Miss. I won't give away how this was worked out in the film, but it was handled with honesty and sincerity.

There is plenty of humor. I especially liked the trash talking player who opposed Michael Oher in one of his early football games.

My only fault with the film, and it's minor, is that they made Michael Oher out to be a saint. I'm sure he's a great person, but we all have our flaws. I would also have liked to have learned more about what has happened with Michael's brother and mother since his success.

Lastly, the filmmakers closed the film with images of the real Michael Oher and the family that helped him. Look for more from this film come awards time.

Review of Hunting Eichmann

Review of Hunting Eichmann by Neal Bascomb
Rating *****

Fans of fiction often complain that nonfiction books tends to be dry. They obviously haven't read the right books. I started this blog, in part, to expand the reach of great nonfiction. Hunting Eichmann is a real life thriller that is better than anything Tom Clancy or any other comparable fiction writer could dream up.

This story begins with the capture in Argentina of Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi who had direct involvement in the deaths of over six million jews. From this beginning the author retraces the steps that led to the capture starting with the waning days of WWII and the collapse of the Third Reich.

Eichmann's role was to round up the jews and send them off to the concentration camps. He did this by promising them that they were simply being relocated. He did this with full knowledge of what fate awaited them. His rationalization for his actions were that he was simply following orders. It's the same justification given by many of the men and women who worked in the concentration camps.

How Eichmann managed to allude his pursuers takes up a good portion of the book. By the time the Jewish secret police, or Mossad, caught up with Eichmann, the whole enterprise of capturing former Nazis and trying them as war criminals had faded from the public consciousness. So when a lead about Eichmann's whereabouts turned out to have some credence, there was renewed interest in bringing this man to justice. Perhaps a trial would once again bring the holocaust to the forefront and acts as a reminder of what had happened.

Eichmann was able to evade capture by living off the grid. He used forged identities. He lived with his family in near poverty without electricity and basic services. One israeli agent sent to check up on a lead about Eichmann took one look at the barren building said to be his home and reported back that it could not be Eichmann. There was no way that such a man could be reduced to so low of living standards. After all, this was a high ranking Nazi who lived a life of luxury while in the military elite. All of that power, however, disappeared almost as soon as his uniform and rank no longer held weight. He turned into a chain smoking, nervous, stooped over man unrecognizable from his former self.

The pursuit, capture, and ultimate trial of Adolf Eichmann as told in this book is nonfiction at its best. If this book doesn't convince you that nonfiction is better than fiction, then nothing will.

St. Louis Library Event

Yesterday I was invited to participate in a local author event at the library. It's always good to get out and do some promotion. Below are a few photos taken at the event.

There were some thirty authors at the event. I took this shot when I first got there. As you can see I was tucked away in a back corner, so I moved shortly after taking this picture.

 

This fuzzy picture was taken by another author I met, Carrie. I'm not sure what happened, but I ended up with a couple of fuzzy photo's and an unintentional movie clip. I'll take responsibility for not setting the camera up properly. But I think there was some operator error involved as well. Now I've been told that I sometimes have a frown in my pictures, but check out the guy behind me.

Anytime you make a sale, consider it a success. 

This is Payton, another happy customer. That's Carrie in the background. I took a picture of her and told her that I'd include it in this blog post. Unfortunately, it came out fuzzy. My bad. But you can read about her YA book at www.girlswithdreams.com

 
 

Review of I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

Review of I Am Trying To Break Your Heart directed by Sam Jones
Rating ***

This is a 2002 documentary about a musical group I had never hear of. The premise is that the director wanted to film the band as they worked on their upcoming album. I've seen similar films like this. Most notably is Metallica's Some Kind Of Monster.As in the Metallica film, the group's dynamics are interrupted and there are plenty of creative differences. In this film, the discord leads to the group being dropped by their label.

After watching this film I can't say I came away as a new fan of Wilco. Their music permeates the 92 minutes of the film, but in all honesty in all that time I did not hear a single tune that had even the slightest hint of a catchy hook or melody. Every song sounded the same, and the lyrics from lead singer and writer Jeff Tweedy were rendered indecipherable by his delivery. Now that I've offended all of you Wilco fans, I can say that the behind the scenes footage of the band trying to finish this album was interesting. While the film didn't delve into the creative process as much as I would have liked, there definitely were some interesting parallels between the music business and the publishing business as it exists today.

The creative differences center around the band's main creative force Jeff Tweedy and musician Jay Bennett. I liked Jay and felt he had a lot more potential than Jeff. Before writing this post I Googled Jay's name. I'll tell you what I discovered in a minute.

When the band finally finishes the album and delivers it to Reprise records, the album is not well received. The executives at the record label think that changes are needed. Many writers have experienced the same kind of response from their publisher or editor. Jeff refuses to make changes. You have to admire him for standing his ground. But a lot of times a final product benefits from varying viewpoints. I am a strong believer in collaboration. As a writer, I take in as much feedback as possible. I don't always agree, but I'm smart enough to listen. From what I've heard from the album they should have made the changes. I will say that the band never got any specific information on what changes the executives thought were necessary. So you can't argue with their artistic choice. In the end, the label released the band from their contract.

In an unusual twist, however, the label let the band keep the rights to the album, even though they funded the recording of the album. That shows you how little they thought of the end product. The remainder of the film covers the eight month search for a new label. The band did do some streaming of the album on their web site and this created interest. I'm sure the controversy and this film helped as well.

The film ends with the group finding a new label and the album going on to critical success. Whether or not the album received financial success I can't say. A visit to Amazon showed over 600 reviews with half being five star and the other half broken fairly evenly between four stars to one star. A number of people agreed with me about the album's merit. More disagreed. So score one for Wilco.

Now about Jay Bennett. A Google search turned up news of his premature death early this year from an overdose of pain killers. A visit to the Wilco web site shows that the band appears to be doing well. I wasn't able to find out much about what jay had been up to since leaving Wilco.

There is plenty to like about this film even if you're not a Wilco fan. If you are a fan, then definitely check this one out.

Review of Amelia

Review of Amelia written by Ron Bass and directed by Mira Nair
Rating ***

Amelia is a solid bio picture that doesn't quite reach the same level as Martin Scorsese's The Aviator. Still, it is a movie worth seeing.

For the past few months I've been stuck in the late twenties and thirties. First there was the book The Lost City of Z, which told the story of explorer Percy Fawcett and his quest to find a lost city in the Amazon. Then there was the book Fordlandia, which also took place in the Amazon during the same period as Amelia. I've moved on now to the forties with Hunting Eichmann.

The film Amelia is about fame as much as it is about Amelia Earhart. Her story is an example of how publicity and the right slant can catapult someone into the spotlight. She was at the right place at the right time and happened to meet the right person, George Putnam. Her initial claim to fame was that she was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. The fact that she was a passenger didn't seem to make much difference. She was promoted as Lady Lindy and a star was born.

Amelia was an aviator and could easily have spent time at the controls to lend the venture more authenticity. No one was more aware of the lack of credibility than Amelia. One way to alleviate her concerns was to do something spectacular. Her answer was to be the first woman to fly solo around the world. She relented on the solo part and agreed to allow navigator Fred Noonan to accompany her. The film is framed between this momentous flight. 

Part of the problem with Amelia is the lack of conflict. What conflict there is comes across as manufactured. It isn't until she sets off on her around the world flight that the film picks up steam. Knowing that she doesn't make it adds a real sense of conflict.

Hilary Swank is perfect in the role of Amelia. She makes the most of what little the script gives her to work with. Richard Gere as George Putnam also does a fine job. Everything else about the film is top notch: the sets, period costumes, cinematography, and score. The flight scenes, however, look CGI.

So what happened to Amelia Earhart? As a pilot, I have a good sense of what was going on inside the cockpit. And the filmmakers got this part wrong. More on that in a minute. But the reality is that she was betting everything on her ability to find a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific ocean. If she were off just a few degrees on her heading, which is an almost certainty, she would have been miles off course. Flying low as she was would have made it even more difficult to spot Howland island. Once they reached the distance where Howland island should have been, she started flying a north south track in hopes of finding the island. What happened next is speculation. The most likely scenario is that she simply ran out of fuel and ditched. Another possibility, that has a level of credibility, is that she was able to ditch near a deserted atoll some 300 miles south of Howland. Some artifacts found on the atoll might prove to be from Amelia and her navigator. A search for more evidence is planned. Click here for more information.

The last few minutes of the film are of Amelia searching unsuccessfully for Howland island. The filmmakers portrayed this scene with Noonan sitting in back and with no communication between the two. I can tell you that Noonan would have been up front with Amelia searching for that island. This was a missed opportunity to ratchet up the tension. There's no way that he would have been sitting in the back looking through the small window that he had.

I do give the filmmakers credit for including actual archival footage of Amelia at the end of the film. The black and white footage was an appropriate way to bring the story to conclusion.

Lastly, while Amelia's attempt to fly around the world was admirable, there happens to be another solo attempt going on right now. Sixteen-year-old Jessica Watson is attempting to become the youngest person to sail solo around the globe. You can follow her progress on her blog.

Review of Fordlandia by Greg Grandin

Review of Fordlandia by Greg Grandin
Rating ****

This book is up for a National Book Award for nonfiction. I was surprised to find that it was available at my local library. You would think that a National Book Award nomination would create a little more demand.

The title Fordlandiais not the catchiest title, but it is an appropriate title because it accurately reflects what this book is about. Fordlandia is the name given to a large parcel of land in Brazil purchased by Henry Ford for the purpose of growing rubber trees with the hope of using that rubber in his expanding automotive empire. It is also a story about what happens when Henry Ford tries to transplant a midwestern town in the middle of the Amazon.

Henry Ford was an enigma. He was responsible for transforming the manufacturing process. He brought transportation to the masses. Yet he held anti-semitic views. He was quick to make enemies. And he wasn't interested in the opinions of others, even when those opinions were to his benefit. The story of Fordlandia encompasses all of the great things about Henry Ford along with the bad.

The idea behind Fordlandia was for Ford to have control of its own rubber source. The car company already produced or manufactured just about everything that went into a Ford car. In today's lexicon, Henry Ford would be considered a control freak. In Fordlandia he took his desire for control to an extreme. His idea was to take what had worked so well for him in Michigan and reproduce that in the Amazon. Fordlandia was perhaps one of the first examples of the industrialization of agriculture. In this case, rubber trees. But Henry didn't stop there. His workers were going to eat and live exactly like the workers in Michigan. He had his engineers draw up plans for a modest size city complete with a hospital, paved streets, a dance hall that doubled as a movie theater, and even a golf course. The workers were to be fed healthy foods like wheat bread and unpolished rice. Workers were encouraged to grow gardens. Sounds good on paper. But the realities were that the climate, culture, and environment were so far removed from Michigan that the whole enterprise was doomed from the start.

They built houses for the workers to the same specs as houses in Michigan, with no consideration for the climate. The workers hated them. Ford managers tried to impose prohibition. The end result of all the rules and restrictions led to a revolt by the workers, who in one day destroyed much of what had taken years to build. Then there were the rubber trees. Ford didn't believe in experts. So he sent managers to the plantation who knew nothing about horticulture. They planted the trees too close together, which made them vulnerable to insects and leaf blight.

The author expertly jumps back and forth between Michigan and the Amazon. In this way we learn about the effects of the great depression on the Ford empire. Photos are spread throughout the book to put them in context. So when the author describes the incongruity of seeing a water tower jutting out above the trees in the middle of the Amazon there is a picture of the water tower on the same page. This might have taken a lot more time from a design standpoint, but it makes for a much more interesting reading experience.

While the story doesn't have a strong narrative structure like Seabiscuit or Lone Survivor, it represents the best that nonfiction has to offer. It's informative, entertaining, and has plenty of lessons to draw from. This is a worthy contender.

Review of Blindsight

Review of Blindsight directed by Lucy Walker
Rating ****

When I first read about this documentary, I thought it was about the story of Eric Weihenmayer, who became the first blind person to scale Mt Everest. If you look at the image used to promote the film, you see a lone individual with arms upraised. But just minutes into the film it becomes apparent that this is not Eric's story at all. This is the story of six blind children from Tibet who embark on a journey with Eric to scale a mountain next to Everest.

The whole thing starts with a letter to Eric from Sabriye Tenberken, who runs a school for the blind in Tibet. Sabriye invites Eric to Tibet to speak with her students about his amazing accomplishment. Eric comes up with the idea of selecting six students to embark on a climb to Lhakpa Ri, a peak near Everest.

Each of the six blind students has their own individual guide to help them scale the mountain. They undergo some minimal training before heading out to the Himalayas. Interspersed with the story of the climb expedition are the individual stories of the six children. This is where the film excels. The problems we deal with daily don't come close to the hardships these children have had.

All of the children stand out in their own way. There's Gynshen (I think this is the right name), who's mother diminishes him and talks about what a relief it was to get rid of him (all while he's standing there listening). There's Tashi, who's story is right out of Slumdog Millionaire. He's taken from his family and forced to beg for a couple who beats him when he doesn't produce. He eventually runs away, but he's blind and unable to do much of anything without assistance. His reunion with his family is one of the more emotional scenes in the movie.

The whole idea behind the film, though, is flawed. Eric grew up in the Rockies. He's a trained climber. He's experienced. Just because he was able to climb Mt. Everest doesn't mean that he can take any blind kid off the street and give them a few days of training and expect them to do the same. The mountain that is his goal is over 23,000 feet high. And they are planning to do this climb without oxygen. Had they chosen a more reasonable goal, I think they would have accomplished more.

Despite what happens on the mountain (no spoiler here), there's no doubt that the six children who undertook this challenge have gained much from the experience and continue to benefit from their participation. The filmmakers give updates on all of the children at the end of the film. Gynshen's story was my favorite. he started his own Braille publishing company and has done well enough that he sends money back to his family. Watching his mother talk about her son with pride says everything about this movie and what it's about.

The DVD had some extras worth watching. You can find out more at www.blindsightthemovie.com.

Why Planes Crash (a clip from the MSNBC documentary)

If you haven't had a chance to see the MSNBC documentary Why Planes Crash: Brace for Impact, here's a very good clip about the ALM ditching. I'm on for about ten seconds.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

November view from the cockpit (Windows 7 theme)

I'm an early adopter. So as soon as Windows 7 came out I decided to upgrade both my desktop and laptop. So far I've been pretty happy. It's cleaner, simpler, and seems faster. One of the new features I like is the ability to use themes. I'm sure that themes were available in earlier versions, but I never used them. In Windows 7 you can change themes in about two seconds. One of the the reasons I've been doing these "view from the cockpit" posts is because I use the images as my desktop background. I switch to a new image every month, so I thought why not share these images with other people.

This month I am offering my first Windows 7 theme consisting of eight of the very best images from my collection. This theme is called cloudscape. To use this theme on you're Windows 7 computer, just download the themepack to your computer (put it in a folder called my themes). Then doubleclick the file. That's all there is to it.

 

My take on the Northwest 188 incident

I'll say up front that I in no way take what happened aboard Northwest 188 lightly. The pilots made a very serious mistake that can't be explained away. At the same time, they made a mistake. People make mistakes. They have admitted their mistake and, as far as I know, have been totally truthful in telling the authorities what happened. So while the media, and just about everyone else, is out to crucify these guys, I see it as an opportunity to learn from what happened and possibly make some changes that might help prevent a similar thing from happening again.

Now the traveling public may find this hard to believe, but overflying a fix where an action is required and that action not taking place is not that uncommon of an occurrence. A good example is overflying a top of descent point and not beginning a descent or requesting a descent. Let's say that you're a couple of miles away from the top of descent and just as you're about to ask for lower you get a call from the flight attendant. So you get involved in dealing with whatever issue the flight attendant has and pass right over the TOD. It happens. The difference might be that the other pilot catches it and brings it to the flying pilot's attention. Maybe the controller sees that the crew hasn't asked for lower and assigns them a lower altitude. In either case the error chain has been broken.

The reason flying is so safe is because there is redundancy and safeguards that are in place to catch errors as they happen before they can cascade into more serious problems. The perfect flight is a goal seldom achieved. For the Northwest crew to make the mistake they made there had to be a series of errors that went unchecked. First there is the loss of communications. It happens all the time. A missed hand-off. A distraction. It's night time. There isn't a lot of chatter going on. After a while the crew realizes that they haven't heard anything so they get on the radio and try to reestablish contact. Sometimes a controller might enlist the aid of another aircraft to try and reach the out-of-contact plane. Sometimes the controller might have another plane contact their company dispatch and have an ACARS message sent directly to the plane. This usually solves the problem. From what I've read, all of this took place but the Northwest crew still didn't realize that they were out of radio contact for an extended period of time.

The crew says that they were using their laptops and were discussing a new crew scheduling system and simply lost track of time and failed to monitor the progress of the flight. That is a hard thing for any pilot to admit to. But it sounds sincere to me. It's what happened. Because they had their laptops in front of them they missed the numerous messages flashing on their flight displays. Should they have been checking those displays? Obviously.

More than likely the crew must have been cleared directly to a fix, either an arrival fix or perhaps even the airport itself. So there would have been very little turning going on, which might have refocused their attention. There wasn't any weather to contend with, so that was another opportunity they would have had to avert their mistake. There may be more information to come out of the investigation that may shed even more light on this incident. So I won't speculate any further than I already have. But there are a number of issues that I plan to comment on as this incident progresses: the role automation may have played; the role of the media in how they routinely get things wrong; the problems associated with long times in cruise flight with automated aircraft; the arguments for and against airline policies that prohibit the use of personal laptops in the cockpit. That last one deserves a quick final comment.

The Airbus operating manual or FCOM is provided in digital form. I don't know for positive that Northwest has laptops on board with the FCOM installed. But I do know that many airlines do. So if a crew is permitted to open a laptop in a noncritical phase of flight to review something in the manual, how is that more safe than a pilot looking at a new crew scheduling system on his personal laptop?

Review of American Violet

Review of American Violet directed by Tim Disney and written by Bill Haney
Rating ****

I am drawn to stories of injustice, especially those dealing with wrongful conviction. This story is about prosecutorial misconduct with an underlying theme of racism. The case in question here deals with the practice of one Texas District Attorney who orchestrated drug raids in poverty stricken black neighborhoods where they rounded up just about everyone in sight and then charged them with drug trafficking. They did this with little or no evidence. 

Why would someone do this? Once these individuals were in custody, their bail bonds were set so high that they couldn't possibly make them. They were then pressured into accepting plea bargains where they would plead guilty and then be released. The DA was thus able to show a high level of convictions, which he was then able to parlay into additional federal funds. The impact on those who were caught up in this injustice suffered greatly. Those who accepted the plea bargains had to face an already bleak situation with the added burden of being convicted felons, thus severely hampering their ability to get jobs and federal assistance. Those who decided to fight the charges were assigned a public attorney who couldn't care less about the outcomes of his clients' cases. The film didn't go into any specifics, but the implication was that those who chose to fight most certainly lost and were given lengthly prison sentences as a result. This all changed when the ACLU got involved and decided to go after the DA with a law suit filed by one of those wrongfully charged.

The person the ACLU decided to back was Dee Roberts, played here by Nicole Behaire. Remember, this is based on a true story. Not knowing the details of the real case, I can't say how accurately the story told in the film follows the actual case. But it isn't an overstatement that Dee took a very large gamble in going after the DA. If she lost she could have received a lengthly prison sentence. She also had the possibility of losing her children.

To help navigate the local legal system, the ACLU hired local lawyer Sam Conroy, pplayed by Will Patton. Once the case was laid out in pretrial hearings and the state's lone witness was shown to be not credible, all charges were dropped. Dee and the ACLU, however, decided to continue with the lawsuit in order to stop the practice of the unlawful drug raids.

While the outcome isn't really in question, getting there is nonetheless compelling. There are a number of notewortrhy performances. Nicole Behaire, Will Patton, Xzibit, Tim Blake Nelson, and Michael O'keefe all give believable portrayals. The story jumps around a bit as the filmmakers try to condense the story into a two hour film, but for the most part they succeed.

At the end of the movie there is a short superimposed update on a few of the main characters. From this we learn that the DA involved in this case had won re-election. Let's hope that now that this film is out the voters won't make the same mistake.

The only extras on the disc is an audio commentary, which I haven't gotten to yet but plan to. I would have liked to have seen a little something on the actual case. The web site for the movie was also lacking any pertinent information about the real Dee Roberts.