CAUTION: POSSIBLE SPOILERS...
Brookside, KY, in the early 1970s. A coal mines roof has caved in and killed two hard working miners. Before the inspectors get there to see what happened, the big company has cleaned the mess hastily.
They "graciously" tell Silas (Ted Levine) that they'll let him do "easy" work tomorrow. You'd think that after someone witnessed two hideous deaths, their boss would give them a few days OFF!!! But no, production is the priority, people are not.
This made for cable film is kind of reminiscent of ERIN BROCKOVICH, pitting "regular" people, regarded as nothings by big greedy business, against the big greedy business.
Holly Hunter is superb as Ruby, Silas' wife. She and her family live in a run down house with no indoor plumbing. She runs the household while her husband and father, who is dying of Coal Miner's Disease, are down in the mines.
A union representative comes into town (Stellan Skaarsgard) and tries to convince everyone, including the coal miners' wives, that a strike is the way to fight the injustice of low wages, poverty, lack of medical benefits and suffering. These poor people are as oppressed and trodden upon as if they were actual slaves. At first the people are cynical about another union. The last union in town did they dirty with a capital D.
But in time, the union rep makes these people see that they need to protest being used and then cast aside like bean pods. The biggest example of "we'll use your labor today and let you rot tomorrow" is the illness and subsequent death of Ruby's father. Soon the men, women and children of Brookside are involved in a bitter, violent strike. Nobody with any clout to speak of sides with them. Law enforcement have been deployed to thwart their efforts to keep "scabs" (men who will work even cheaper than the actual employees) out and to shut the coal mine down.
What's really scarey is that back in the 1800's battles like these were even more violent.
The bluegrass music of Appalachia was beautiful. Moments of banjo and fiddle and scenes of men jolly with moonshine were delightful and gave me a respite from the violence and sadness that permeates this film.
I give it an A+
Brookside, KY, in the early 1970s. A coal mines roof has caved in and killed two hard working miners. Before the inspectors get there to see what happened, the big company has cleaned the mess hastily.
They "graciously" tell Silas (Ted Levine) that they'll let him do "easy" work tomorrow. You'd think that after someone witnessed two hideous deaths, their boss would give them a few days OFF!!! But no, production is the priority, people are not.
This made for cable film is kind of reminiscent of ERIN BROCKOVICH, pitting "regular" people, regarded as nothings by big greedy business, against the big greedy business.
Holly Hunter is superb as Ruby, Silas' wife. She and her family live in a run down house with no indoor plumbing. She runs the household while her husband and father, who is dying of Coal Miner's Disease, are down in the mines.
A union representative comes into town (Stellan Skaarsgard) and tries to convince everyone, including the coal miners' wives, that a strike is the way to fight the injustice of low wages, poverty, lack of medical benefits and suffering. These poor people are as oppressed and trodden upon as if they were actual slaves. At first the people are cynical about another union. The last union in town did they dirty with a capital D.
But in time, the union rep makes these people see that they need to protest being used and then cast aside like bean pods. The biggest example of "we'll use your labor today and let you rot tomorrow" is the illness and subsequent death of Ruby's father. Soon the men, women and children of Brookside are involved in a bitter, violent strike. Nobody with any clout to speak of sides with them. Law enforcement have been deployed to thwart their efforts to keep "scabs" (men who will work even cheaper than the actual employees) out and to shut the coal mine down.
What's really scarey is that back in the 1800's battles like these were even more violent.
The bluegrass music of Appalachia was beautiful. Moments of banjo and fiddle and scenes of men jolly with moonshine were delightful and gave me a respite from the violence and sadness that permeates this film.
I give it an A+