Review – Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

I must confess to being one of the thousands (if not millions at this point) of dupes that bought and read the book upon which this movie is based (hey, my excuse is that I was stuck in New York’s Penn Station waiting on a train that was very late and the only other thing I had with me was a bag full of law books). I guess it’s sort of nice to see this northeastern-seaboard-oh-tee-hee-look-at-all-the-quaint-locals crap turned on southerners rather than midwesterners. For what it’s worth, Eastwood’s film version does an admirable job of capturing most of the letter and the essence of the book while at the same time avoiding some of Berendt’s shortcomings (particularly his lack of candor about his ties to Jim Williams). And speaking of Williams: Kevin Spacey plays him, or at least the Berendt version of him, perfectly. Mildly amusing