The first time I can even remember hearing the word Attica was in the movie "Dog Day Afternoon." I had no idea what Al Pacino meant when he was repeatedly shouting "Attica! Attica! Attica!" I later found out that Attica was a prison in New York, and last year I read the Pulitzer Prize winning book "Blood in the Water" about the Attica uprising and retaking.
"Against the Wall" focuses a lot on one guard, Michael Smith (Kyle MacLachlan) and one prisoner, Jamaal X (Samuel L. Jackson) aka Richard X Clark. Attica prison was a powder keg ready to blow and only needed the right situation to detonate. That situation came and what started as a small fracas from a few dozen inmates quickly became a prison-wide takeover.
Because the movie focuses so much on two individuals, we don't get a firm sense of the overall atmosphere--in America, in the prisons, in New York, or even in the city of Attica. Of course, a movie is limited in its ability to be encompassing, which is a bit of a drawback. And what movies in general also suffer from is dramatizations. In this case, "Against the Wall" makes the entire ordeal a lot bloodier than it really was. One only need to watch the documentary titled: "Attica" (1974). Although a few hostages were harmed, the more intelligent prisoners realized immediately that the hostages were their only bargaining chips and should they be harmed--or worse, killed--then the prisoners lost all leverage. For that reason they treated the hostages better than themselves.
I knew ahead of time what the end result would be in this movie, it was just a matter of how it would all be portrayed. Writer, Ron Hutchinson, and director, John Frankenheimer, did an OK portrayal from what I've read and seen elsewhere. The bottom line is that the Attica uprising and takeover was an ugly spot in American history, but it's one we shouldn't forget.
