Movie review for the day (Conspirator)

Rico says he watched, in some fascination, The Conspirator, a new movie by Robert Redford (photo, at left) about the trial of the conspirators (well, mostly Mary Surratt) in the Lincoln assassination. It was amazingly realistic and period-perfect, down to putting dirt in the streets of Washington so the horses wouldn't clop on the normally-paved streets.
It stars James McAvoy (photo, at right) as Frederick Aiken, the Union veteran hired to defend her, and Robin Wright (here no longer the fresh-faced Princess Bride) as Mrs. Surratt, the first woman hanged by the government. (The movie also stars, in far less visible roles, Kevin Kline as Edwin Stanton, Tom Wilkinson as Reverdy Johnson, Colm Meaney as David Hunter, Toby Kebbell as John Wilkes Booth, Jonathan Groff as Louis Weichmann, Norman Reedus as Lewis Payne, John Michael Weatherly as George Atzerodt, Marcus Hester as David Herold, and Gerald Bestrom as Abraham Lincoln, along with a host of others.
Whether or not you believe she was railroaded by a vindictive set of Union generals (all dead now a hundred years, so it no longer really matters), or was a part of a terrible conspiracy (probable, but not proven), it's a great piece of history and a very good movie. Like Joe Bob Briggs, Rico says check it out...