SACCO AND VANZETTI [NR]
Veteran producer Peter Miller smartly chooses as his first film as director this scholarly but concise examination of the national embarrassment that was Massachusetts’ infamous Sacco and Vanzetti case. Two Italian anarchists accused of murder in the 1920s did not stand a chance of a fair trial, something that Miller proves through careful dissection through very fortunate interviews and forensic dissection. From biased judges to exonerating testimony discounted due to its ethnic source to evidence manufactured to suit the prosecution’s needs, Miller covers it all. Using a generous amount of clips from Giuliano Montaldo’s 1971 narrative film, a careful ratio of talking heads to visual material and a perfect casting of Tony Shalhoub voicing Sacco and John Turturro giving life to Vanzetti, Miller scores big here. He not only puts the case in historical perspective, but he connects it to our now, making the case for the folly of the government’s post-9/11 campaign to make Arab-Americans the convenient, shifty national scapegoats of the 21st century. –Robert Newton