***SPOILERS*** Long drawn out murder mystery that goes on and on until you lose sight of what's happening by all the different odd ball characters thrown into it.
It all starts quit innocently enough when "Town & Country" columnist John Kelso, John Cusack, is invited to Savannah antique and art collector Jim Williams', Kevin Spacey, sprawling southern mansion for his annual Christmas Party to write a 500 word story on it. While chatting with Williams about him and his famous parties that anyone whose anyone, in the city of Savannah, just has to be invited too to be considered anyone in pops up Williams' drunk as a skunk house boy Billy Hanson, Jude Law, and in a violent argument with Williams, over his pay, breaks a whiskey bottle and threatens to cut his face up with it! Later as Kelso is trying to overcome this slice of life in Savannah as well as "Southern Hospitably", in what he saw between Williams & Hanson, it's reported that Hanson had been found shot to death in the Williams Mansion with Jim Williams being the one who shot him! With Kelso seeing just how wild and dangerous Hanson was towards Williams he ends up being considered a star witness in Williams upcoming murder trial.
At first an open and shut case of self-defense on Williams' part things start to surface about him and Hanson that shows that his motives were more of self-preservation, in keeping his darkest of secrets from seeing the light of day, then anything else! In Kelso tracking down Hanson's former landlady the outrageous Chablis Deveau, Lady Chablis, he soon finds out that Hanson was a male hustler who's clients were both men and women with Williams being one of them! In fact Williams made Hanson his personal companion, or gay lover, to be with him at all times even when he went overseas! The fact that Williams was obviously being blackmailed by Hanson, in revealing his closeted gay lifestyle, may have been the reason for his being killed by him.
***SPOILER*** As things started to go, no pun intended, south for Williams he in desperation gets in touch with Voodoo Priestess Minerva, Irma P. Hall, to put a hex on the judge and jury trying him to keep Williams from getting convicted and sent away for life if not to Georgia State prison's death row. Kelso who at first believed Williams' account of his killing Hanson in self-defense later had second thoughts about it from none other then Williams himself. Williams in what seem to be a heart felt jail-house confession admitted to a stunned Kelso that he in fact did kill Hanson but out of rage in his planning to expose him, as being gay, then anything else! This shocking revelation on Williams' part had the hex that he had Minerva concocted for him, in a Savannah Voodoo cemetery, backfire on Williams even though he did in fact beat the rap, or murder charge, against him in court!
P.S True story based on the best selling book-that was on the prestigious NY Times book review list for an astounding 216 weeks- "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" By John Berendt does bring out the sleazy and supernatural-in regards to Voodoo-aspects of the story. But like in most "true stories" that are made into movies the truth is far stranger then the movie that was based on it.
It's true that Williams, like in the film, was found innocent in Hanson's death but it took four, not one like in the movie, trials to exonerate him. In the first two trials Williams was convicted and the convictions were later overturned by a higher court. The third trial ended up in a mistrial and it was then decided to have a change of venue and try Williams for a forth time in Agusta Ga. where he was finally, after eight years, found innocent of murdering Hanson! Now free and, if what he told Kelso is true, getting away with murder Williams suddenly died at age 59 of complications from pneumonia that lead to heart failure just six months, on January 14, 1990, after he won his freedom! It's as if Miverva's Voodoo hex did in fact work by striking down the guilty person-Jim Williams-she unknowingly conjured it up for!
It all starts quit innocently enough when "Town & Country" columnist John Kelso, John Cusack, is invited to Savannah antique and art collector Jim Williams', Kevin Spacey, sprawling southern mansion for his annual Christmas Party to write a 500 word story on it. While chatting with Williams about him and his famous parties that anyone whose anyone, in the city of Savannah, just has to be invited too to be considered anyone in pops up Williams' drunk as a skunk house boy Billy Hanson, Jude Law, and in a violent argument with Williams, over his pay, breaks a whiskey bottle and threatens to cut his face up with it! Later as Kelso is trying to overcome this slice of life in Savannah as well as "Southern Hospitably", in what he saw between Williams & Hanson, it's reported that Hanson had been found shot to death in the Williams Mansion with Jim Williams being the one who shot him! With Kelso seeing just how wild and dangerous Hanson was towards Williams he ends up being considered a star witness in Williams upcoming murder trial.
At first an open and shut case of self-defense on Williams' part things start to surface about him and Hanson that shows that his motives were more of self-preservation, in keeping his darkest of secrets from seeing the light of day, then anything else! In Kelso tracking down Hanson's former landlady the outrageous Chablis Deveau, Lady Chablis, he soon finds out that Hanson was a male hustler who's clients were both men and women with Williams being one of them! In fact Williams made Hanson his personal companion, or gay lover, to be with him at all times even when he went overseas! The fact that Williams was obviously being blackmailed by Hanson, in revealing his closeted gay lifestyle, may have been the reason for his being killed by him.
***SPOILER*** As things started to go, no pun intended, south for Williams he in desperation gets in touch with Voodoo Priestess Minerva, Irma P. Hall, to put a hex on the judge and jury trying him to keep Williams from getting convicted and sent away for life if not to Georgia State prison's death row. Kelso who at first believed Williams' account of his killing Hanson in self-defense later had second thoughts about it from none other then Williams himself. Williams in what seem to be a heart felt jail-house confession admitted to a stunned Kelso that he in fact did kill Hanson but out of rage in his planning to expose him, as being gay, then anything else! This shocking revelation on Williams' part had the hex that he had Minerva concocted for him, in a Savannah Voodoo cemetery, backfire on Williams even though he did in fact beat the rap, or murder charge, against him in court!
P.S True story based on the best selling book-that was on the prestigious NY Times book review list for an astounding 216 weeks- "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" By John Berendt does bring out the sleazy and supernatural-in regards to Voodoo-aspects of the story. But like in most "true stories" that are made into movies the truth is far stranger then the movie that was based on it.
It's true that Williams, like in the film, was found innocent in Hanson's death but it took four, not one like in the movie, trials to exonerate him. In the first two trials Williams was convicted and the convictions were later overturned by a higher court. The third trial ended up in a mistrial and it was then decided to have a change of venue and try Williams for a forth time in Agusta Ga. where he was finally, after eight years, found innocent of murdering Hanson! Now free and, if what he told Kelso is true, getting away with murder Williams suddenly died at age 59 of complications from pneumonia that lead to heart failure just six months, on January 14, 1990, after he won his freedom! It's as if Miverva's Voodoo hex did in fact work by striking down the guilty person-Jim Williams-she unknowingly conjured it up for!