the audience applauded

Simply Perfect

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

John Sayles tackles a union struggle from 1920 in West Virginia where coal miners seeking a better pay and working conditions organize against a company who use race to divide the workers, making it a wedge between black and white workers.This was the era of the company store when the mining company owned the people doing all the back breaking work. The organizers are infiltrated by undercover agents; the hated Pinkerton's were well known for breaking strikes both covertly and overtly. Sayles sympathies clearly lie with the working class and this is an important work by an underrated director.

Writer director John Sayles turns the pages of history back to West Virginia circa 1920, where overworked and underpaid employees of the Stone Mountain Coal Company attempt to unionize the mines, touching off a violent confrontation with company strikebreakers. The background is perfect for what should have been a tidy little historical drama, but Sayles opts for the romantic approach, with lots of photogenic poverty and soft-focus solidarity. His intentions are honorable, but the film is far too superficial to function as anything more than propaganda: the miners all wear halos, the company gunmen all have forked tails, and the final showdown comes after one too many subplot and campfire sermon. Capable performances and scenic photography aren't enough to compensate for an overplotted, overwritten script, which too often sounds like a grade school primer on early labor organization. The facts demand more than the two-dimensional treatment given here.

The story goes that in the early part of the twentieth century that coal mine owners were pretty much enslaving their workers. By making the miners work for the company, live in a company owned home and by not paying those cash, but instead making them buy their goods at the company store on company credit was like slavery. The workers are fed up in the story, and like any battle, there are two sides. One side is pro union, which the mine owners believe these are the "Reds" or communist, and the other sides of the battle are those that don't want the union; mostly these are the "bad guys" who own the mines (and most of the town). In today's world, we still see injustice arising like those of early twentieth century America, but in third world countries such as those in Africa.The best part of the film was the ending when the union workers and the mine owners face off in a confrontational shootout in the streets of town. It was beautifully shot with great scenery and suspense. Just at the drop of a hat, the town was forever changed. The sheriff, played by David Straithairn comes off almost cocky in his favor of the townspeople over the arrogance of the mine owner's thugs. It is good to see the law taking the side of the oppressed and not the oppressor.The two thugs sent by the mine owners were very much flat characters, drawn out and overused, even stereotypical at times. Forcing their way into the home of the woman and her son, and displacing the union organizer, they were rude and chauvinist too. Pulling a gun on a boy at the dinner table though, how immature. So I was especially grateful that they were on the losing side, much where John Sayles would like us to see them, which is probably why they were so flat and stereotypical.

Matewan tells the tale of just one of the battles fought in the coal mining wars of the late nineteenth, early twentieth century.Chris Cooper, as Joe Menehan, plays a union organizer intent upon bringing the miners of Matewan out from underneath the heel of the coal mine owners. When intimidation and terror tactics fail to cow the locals, the mine operators and their private security thugs bring in scabs, nominally led by "Few Clothes" Johnson - played by James Earl Jones. When the scabs join the strikers the mine operators resort to all-out warfare against the unionized miners.David Strathairn, Chris Cooper, James Earl Jones, Mary McDonnell - everyone on the cast delivers a believable, wonderful performance. Everything in this movie makes you feel as if you were really there and depicts this often overlooked event in American history with a stark realism that will leave you thinking about it over and over for a very long time.Such is the impact of the direction, acting, and writing of this movie that when I saw this movie on video about a week ago, it was still as fresh in my mind as when I saw it last on the big screen on opening day.10 out of 10. Truly an overlooked classic.