Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry

The story recounts the struggles of a poor black Mississippi family in the 1930's and their attempt to hold on to their family's piece of land despite the machinations of white bigots all around them. This is a story that should be sensitively and delicately adapted, which is the exact opposite of director Jack Smight's typically sledgehammer TV style.

For no good reason, the movie begins in the *middle* of the novel's story and then works its way backward and forward to encompass the novel's material. Thus, the novel's delicate character build-ups, which had rich payoffs in the novel's climax, are mostly laid waste here.

Many of the novel's subtlest yet most powerful images are destroyed here, simply by inadequate camera placement. One example is the incident where Mr. Morrison, the family's burly helper, moves a bigoted white man's car out of his path with his bare hands, while the white man looks on astonishment. The novel exquisitely describes the incident, culminating in Mr. Morrison nonchalantly driving off while the cowardly bigot spews epithets at him. In the movie, the camera, which has been inexplicably swooping in and out of scene for most of the movie, sits in the same, dull stationary position throughout this scene. No close-ups of the bigot's or the children's surprised faces. And then the white man drives off on his own before Mr. Morrison does, neatly killing the entire point of the scene.

All that a viewer can really enjoy are the nice performances, particularly Morgan Freeman in an early-career role as the family's confrontational Uncle Hammer. Otherwise, the book's superb portrait of racism in the 1930's South is negated.


Very disappointing   November 8, 2005
S. Nawrat (near london, uk)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful

I have just finished watching this book at school because we have been studying the book. The book is very good; it is gritty, down to earth and tells it like it is (in some parts it is quite violent). But the film is very disappointing. The acting is wooden, the children all look wrong (Cassie is supposed to be 9 but she looks 15) and constantly have cheesy grins on their faces. The film is too sentimental and cheesy. The film also cuts out a lot of the swearing and violence as well as other parts of the story. For example, John Henry Berry is badly burnt and in the book he is still alive and the children see him badly burnt but in the film he is buried under the rubble of his house and you do not see him.

This film not only badly acted, overly sentimental and inaccurate, it is also quite unfaithful to what is a quite short book. Do not watch this!!!


Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry   April 19, 2001
5 out of 6 found this review helpful

Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry, is a strong, powerful, and a very interesting book. It tells of how an African American family strugles to live in the threat of racism in the 1930's. Cassie, the girl who narrates the story, has to learn to stand up for herself but must be careful at the same time. I enjoyied this book somewhat. I didn't think it had much action to it but thought it had a twist to most of the interesting parts. The most surprising part to me was when the store keeper got killed. I think this because you would never guess who was in the store at the same time with the murderers witnessing it. One of my dislikes was the predjeduice people who were against African Americans. I found that the white people were very cold hearted.


Awesome   October 17, 1999
4 out of 7 found this review helpful

Cassie stands up for what she believes in and it pays off


antisocail   December 18, 2002
4 out of 6 found this review helpful

This movie really stunk the acting was horrible except Morgan Freeman.Every copy should be shoved down his throat.They needed a higher budget it looked like it cost six cents to make.Did I mention how much i hate this movie. This is the worst movie i have ever seen and i've saw some pretty bad movies. they should have better actors.during the scene where papa cacthes the cotton on fire Jermey,Cassy, Stacey, Little man. they looked like they were reading the script.