The Worst Film Ever

Admirable film.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

This accurate portrayal of the Scopes Monkey trial stars Brian Dennehy (Rambo) as Clarence Darrow, John Scopes' attorney whom the ACLU eventually fired, Fred Thompson (Law & Order) as William Jennings Bryan, the widely beloved prosecutor, Colm Meaney (Star Trek) as the Baltimore Sun's H.L. Mencken, and love interests Ashley Johnson (The Help, The Avengers, and The Last of Us) and Nathan West, and the adorable Khori Faison as the step sister targeted for sterilization. What a great movie, Alleged, accurate to the history and trial transcript of the Scopes Monkey Trial, unlike Hollywood's previous Inherit the Wind attempt. Also, it presents what Hollywood and evolutionists intentionally leave out of their popular renditions, that the textbook that was being defended by the ACLU, Hunter's Civic Biology, portrayed Blacks and Jews and other racial minorities (like Khori's character) as closer to apes as compared to those of European descent. Also, the historicity of the sets, the train scenes, were all spot on!

The production is beautiful. So squeaky-clean. So much emphasis on a love story taking precedence over a moment of history. For all its anti-evolution talk, it never makes any valid points against it, but does bring up important issues such as eugenics. Perhaps the pseudo-Disney approach, lush music, soft-focus cameras, oh-so-traditionally old-fashioned production values are a disguise for religious propaganda. But the worst revisionism is not any attempt to derail the force of evolution and progress in education. The worst revisionism is the utterly false picture of an oh-so-happy South in which the races mixed easily and freely in social and work situations. The Black nurse shows no fear of the White clients or employers, and even speaks up to some. The female lead has mixed-race half-sister. No racial tension to speak of. That is a scurrilous portrait to paint of the oh-so-hate-filled South. If these undercurrents are associated with these very fine production values, that is the worst of all.

"Alleged" is extremely one-sided against evolution. I kept waiting for the other side of the argument. With William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow, there's a perfect opportunity to show both sides. But, it just wasn't there. I was disappointed to see Brian Dennehy, whom I usually love, in such a narrowly written role of a major historical figure. Did he really need the work? You gradually realized that the film wasn't a portrayal of events and characters, but just one-sided propaganda. It certainly was not "Inherit the Wind". Even if you disagree with the depiction in "Inherit the Wind", at least come up with a credible story. The makers of "Alleged" didn't bother.

A misfortune from start to finish - flat characterizations with revisionist mangling of historical figures held to improbable dramatic postures to support unlikely plot conclusions. The scenes are vapid. The dialog and language wholly uninspired, the players unconvinced. The idea, added to this script, that evolution is somehow responsible for the emergence of a new brand of human cruelty - is an irresponsible and strained plot device: apparently the only thing they could come up with for the "good vs evil" storyline unavailable to them from plausible historical fact. This film is no help to those for whom dramatic equivalent to Inherit the Wind was imagined. This might better be titled "Inherit the Gas"