Against The Wall

This tough-as-nails reenactment of the 1971 Attica prison riots is jam-packed with political and sociological implications. Refreshingly, none of the characters in the film – the prisoners, the guards and the high-profile mediators, are rendered in strictly good-guy or bad-guy terms by screenwriter Ron Hutchinson. Anyone old enough to have witnessed the original live TV coverage of the riot, however, will be able to discern who was truly responsible for its tragic outcome. While the 1971 TV-movie "Attica" was told from a journalist's point of view, this drama is filtered through the eyes of an idealistic young prison guard by the name of Michael Smith.