Theodore Roosevelt was contemptuous of races and nations he considered inferior. When a mob in New Orleans lynched a number of Italian immigrants, Roosevelt thought the United States should offer the Italian government some remuneration, but privately he wrote his sister that he thought the lynching was "rather a good thing" and told her he had said as much at a dinner with "various dago diplomats . . . all wrought up by the lynching."This was the attitude of America in 1891. The New York Times on March 14, 1891, published an article describing the events in this film with the following headline: CHIEF HENNESSY AVENGED; ELEVEN OF HIS Italian ASSASSINS LYNCHED BY A MOB. The attitude of the whites in New Orleans can best be summed up by the comments from one businessman, "I would rather have a thousand Chinamen, than one Italian.This information is critical to understanding the movie, the truth of which is well documented. It was not just African Americans that suffered lynching after the Civil War, many Italians suffered the same fate across the country, but mostly in the South.Timothy Prager's script hewed very closely to Richard Gambino's book. The performances were outstanding, particularly Christopher Walken, Joaquim de Almeida, and Clancy Brown, in the short time he was on screen. Alessandro Colla and Megan McChesney provided a romantic distraction amid the chaos. This was their only screen roles, and they did very well.I am grateful to Alan DiFiore, Mark Israe,Sue Jett,Gary Lucchesi,Tony Mark, Nicholas Pileggi, and Gary A. Randall for making this important film.

A very good made-for-TV-movie.A great cast , some good performances, but above all, a great story. As is almost always the case, the best stories are the true stories, the ones that actually occurred. Often they exceed our imagination, as is the case with this one. Hadn't I known that this was a true story, I would have deemed the plot to be far fetched, unrealistic... Goes to say...Watch this film if you can, it will teach you a little about the past and how some great fortunes where made at that time, the movie is definitely worth it.

This was a fairly interesting historical drama, but the portrayals were so black and white that the story seemed improbable to me. I suspect the true story is a bit more "gray" than the movie suggests. Our politically correct society allows these one sided views only when the "white anglo saxon protestant" male is the villain.

This seemed like a really good movie. Now I'm not sure if that's because I worked as an extra in it and the sight of myself in an HBO movie just overwelmed me or if it was good by itself. It has some great courtroom drama if you like that sort of thing.