On G List of Movie Reviews
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Guyana Tragedy:
The Story of Jim Jones (1980)
Rate:
7
Viewed:
9/25
9/25:
Before there was David Koresh and before there was Charles Manson, there was Jim Jones.
Remember that Jim Jones founded the Peoples Temple in 1955. His cult kept growing and moved around
from Indianapolis to San Francisco and then finally Guyana, a South American country to the east of Venezuela.
At first, it started off with good intentions, but Jim Jones decided to be selfish and became a demigod.
The result is a mass murder-suicide of 918 people on November 18, 1978.
Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones chronicles the rise and fall of the cult leader, but on the
whole, it's not well made. I expected more from Ernest Tidyman, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of
The French Connection. Where he failed the most in is plot
development. It's often weak, leaving out the more important stuff that led to the finale, so I relied on
Power Boothe to get me through the three-hour-long film. There's no question that he's Jim Jones.
The cast is particularly strong which includes Randy Quaid, Ned Beatty, James Earl Jones, Meg Foster, Brad
Dourif, Diana Scarwid, Diane Ladd, Colleen Dewhurst, Irene Cara, Ron O'Neal, Brenda Vaccaro, Ed Lauter, and
two thespians from Roots: LeVar Burton and Madge Sinclair. The most
shocking moment, apart from the ending, is when Kunta Kinte got bitch-slapped repeatedly by a white woman
in the church.
All in all, Powers Boothe gives the best performance of his career in
Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones.