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Product Description
Director: Tony Bill
Manufacturer: Metrodome
Customer Reviews
After a mine roof caves in killing two miners, the company cleans up the mess hastily before safety inspectors arrive see what happened, and the miners go on strike in protest. When the company management sack the striking miners and take legal action in the form of a trespassing injunction to stop them from picketing on company property their wives occupy the picket line in order to bypass the law. As the strike goes on, and with no end in sight, the build up of frustration and anger of both parties leads to more violent confrontations.
A major aspect of the film deals with relationships; how in a small community an industrial strike can shatter long standing relationships and friendships, and how personal differences can be put aside to come together for a common cause. The film also touches on the complications that the community will face when the strike is inevitably over, knowing the inhabitants of Harlan county will have to put aside past grievances in order to continue working and living together amicably.
The only thing that lets the film down is some really clichéd direction. It tries too hard to push emotional buttons, both with its representation of the locals as noble hillbillies who live in homes without running water or electricity, and the empowered miners wives who fight the cause while their husbands casually sit around drinking beer. That aside, it's an appealing story with an impressive cast who give decent performances, and as a made for TV film it's pretty watchable.
The time line, scenery, and vocabulary were the most disturbing errors.
If they had gone to the actual place, they would have known that it does not take long for the women to get riled, and they take up sticks much faster than suggested. There are still laws on the books that compare the danger of a Kentucky woman with a stick versus two men with guns. Also, the incident of people walking up to each other and shooting them dead without comment was ridiculously downplayed. There was and is much more "just as soon shoot ya as look at ya" going on, and these are men of action not words.
Most painful was when Hunter looks out and comments that she has seen the same "mountains" all her life (and has only been to Lexington once). The scene shows a Canadian scene completely foreign to Kentucky instead of the Appalachians that are unusually beautiful in those parts. Everyone knows they are "hills" and that is what they are called. Lexington is referred to as the city, and young girls get out that way more often than once per lifetime. When a Kentucky woman looks out her kitchen window and says "its like heaven come right down to earth," it is obvious why she never wanted to be anyplace else, and that is what the movie lacks.
Other strange points include the presentation of hog brains as a delicacy. Maybe squirrel brains, but on the hog, the common thing would be the Rocky Mountain Oysters. Also, the repeated reference to "moon shine" although it is called white lightening or mountain dew (moon shining is bootlegging, and has a different connotation). The most ridiculous is when the one wife says her cover for sneaking out is to borrow some "pinto beans" from Hunter, but a pinto is a horse. I mean, everyone knows what "soup beans" are, but I do not think anyone ever heard the word pinto used to describe a bean in Kentucky. The director allowed several similar word choices that would have been corrected by having ever been there.
The movie has a wise old relative come up from Knoxville to remind the women that they used to call it Bloody Harlan. HELLO, Bloody Harlan & Bloody Breathitt, two of the four counties that never had to draft a man because they signed up 100% to go kill the enemy and still trade number one positions as the highest per capita murder rates in the nation. If the director had ever been there, he woulda knowed that.
Other than that, the movie was first rate. Whatever money was saved by filming in Toronto, would have been recouped by actually filming in Harlan.
I am 52 years old and can remember visiting them as a child when they lived in the coal mine camp housing. The mining companies owned everything including the grocery store. Tennessee Ernie Ford said it in his song, "16 Tons". "I owe my soul to the company store."
My grand father suffered from black lung. Two of my uncles lost thier lives from a cave in while working in the coal mines. This movie hits the nail on the head. It is actually toned down from the real bloodshed those people faced at Brookside, Ky..
Holly Hunter's acting and accent is so believable. This movie should have been awarded an Oscar for best picture. It's a must have for every DVD library.
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