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Whitewash: The Clarence Brandley Story: Review

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A heartfelt message film of the kind that used to be the province of big screen filmmakers like Stanley Kramer, this made-for-TV film is a respectable addition to the fold. Many years ago, as janitorial supervisor Clarence Brandley's (Courtney B. Vance) father was murdered by racists. It's now 1980 and times haven't changed much in Clarence's hometown of Conroe, Texas. When a white teenager is raped and murdered at the high school where Clarence works, he's immediately suspected. Authorities coerce false testimony from Clarence's slow-witted employee, Icky Peace (Derek McGrath), and rather than collect forensic evidence or grill the white janitors, the biased prosecutors go out of their way to shape the evidence in a way that incriminates Clarence. With the frame in place, Clarence's court-appointed attorney, Don Brown (Chuck Shamata), gets the runaround from Judge Martin (Terry Harford), whose brand of jurisprudence is warped by political considerations. Key defense evidence vanishes overnight, and the only people willing to talk are liars. Although Jewish activist Don Boney (Eamonn Walker) helps Brown mount a spirited defense, Judge Martin and D.A. Keeshan (Joseph Ziegler) undermine their efforts. Convicted and sentenced to death row, Brandley despairs until Brown calls in a hotshot attorney Gil DeGuerin (Gil Bellows). Defending Brandley entails stepping on some powerful courthouse toes, which could mean career suicide. But De Guerin dives in, determined to unmask the real criminal or criminals and expose the corrupt system that railroaded Brandley in the first place. This fact-based courtroom drama works up a righteous head of steam over the way endemic bias warps the justice system before succumbing to TV-movie stereotyping. leave a comment --Robert Pardi
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