The Conspirator Review

It’s hard to say what’s more creaky: the dutiful, muffled tone that director Robert Redford brings to this courtroom drama set after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, or the way he uses the trial of Mary Surratt (Robin Wright), a boarding-house proprietor wrongly accused of conspiracy (her son was a plotter in the Lincoln hit), as a metaphor for the vengeful excesses of the post-9/11 age. James McAvoy, as the Civil War veteran who defends Surratt, has an avid presence, but the movie is stiff-jointed and dull. C

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