Mississippi Burning (DVD)

Mississippi Burning is a 1988 American historical crime thriller film directed by Alan Parker that is loosely based on the 1964 murder investigation of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner in Mississippi. In 1964, three civil rights workers – two Jewish and one black – go missing while in Jessup County, Mississippi, organizing a voter registry for African Americans after having being shot dead in their car by pursuant. The FBI sends Alan Ward and Rupert Anderson to investigate. Ward is a Northerner, senior in rank but much younger than Anderson, and approaches the investigation by the book. In contrast, Anderson, a former Mississippi sheriff, is more nuanced in his approach. The pair find it difficult to conduct interviews with the local townspeople, as Sheriff Ray Stuckey and his deputies influence the public and are linked to a branch of the Ku Klux Klan. The wife of Deputy Sheriff Clinton Pell reveals to Anderson in a discreet conversation that the three missing men have been murdered and their bodies buried in an earthen dam. Pell beats his wife brutally in retribution.
Ward and Anderson's different approaches spill over into a physical fight which Ward wins but concedes his methods have been ineffective and gives Anderson carte blanche to deal with the problem his way. Anderson devises a plan to indict members of the Klan for civil rights violations, instead of murder, as civil rights are federal charges where conviction is more certain compared to a state-level charge of murder. The FBI arranges a kidnapping of Mayor Tilman, taking him to a remote shack, where he is left with a black man, who threatens to castrate him unless he speaks out. Tilman gives him a complete description of the killings, including the names of those involved. The abductor is revealed to be an FBI operative assigned to intimidate Tilman. Although the obtained information is not admissible in court due to coercion, it does prove valuable to the investigators.
Anderson and Ward concoct a plan, luring identified Klan collaborators to a bogus meeting, but the Klan members soon realize they have been set up and leave without discussing the murders. The FBI then concentrates on Lester Cowens, a Klansman of interest who exhibits a nervous demeanor, which the agents believe might yield a confession. The FBI picks him up and interrogates him. Later, Cowens is at home when a shotgun blast shatters his window. After seeing a burning cross on his lawn, he attempts to flee in his truck but is caught by several hooded men who intend to hang him. The FBI arrives to rescue him, having staged the whole scenario where the hooded men are revealed to be other FBI agents.