MOVIE REVIEW : ‘Convicts’: Coming to Terms With Mortality

“Convicts” (at the Monica 4-Plex) is in essence a one-act Horton Foote play, which he has gracefully adapted to the screen. But it is of sufficient scope to afford Robert Duvall one of his juiciest roles.

He’s Soll Gautier, a crusty old sugar cane planter on the gulf coast of Texas. It’s 1902, and Soll, forgetful and paranoid, has lost track of how old he is--he’s surely at least in his 70s, possibly his 80s. He lives alone in a fine but seedy old mansion while his fields are tended to by black convict labor who sleep in a barn. Wary of his laborers, Soll has a trusty (Mel Winkler) guard him every night.

For six months, Horace Robedaux (Lukas Haas), a 13-year-old, has been tending Soll’s ramshackle general store for 50 cents a week with the idea of earning enough money to pay for his father’s tombstone. He stays in a hut with the kindly, wise black couple (James Earl Jones and Starletta DuPois) who look after Soll more than he realizes.

As Christmas Eve approaches, Horace has yet to see a penny. In fact, Soll has barely been aware of him until this day, and pays attention to him only because he feels overcome with his own sense of mortality. He means to give the boy the $12.50 he owes him and even talks of paying for a fancy headstone for Horace’s father.

Foote has said that “Convicts” is about one’s making peace with death, and that is what Soll does to the very best of his wavering mental abilities, ruminating through his past, trying to put his affairs in order. Soll is a hard man with a dry-as-dust sense of humor, but his fierce pride and lack of self-pity command respect, if not affection. What Foote and director Peter Masterson, who also brought Foote’s “A Trip to Bountiful” so memorably to the screen, have evoked is the passing of the Old South, an entire way of life, which they view with an appreciation of its gallantry but with a very clear-eyed awareness of its cruel social and economic injustices.

“Convicts” boasts wonderful ensemble performances, but they were unfortunately sabotaged at the press preview by a print with a flat, murky, uneven soundtrack that made Duvall’s appropriately drawling speeches all but incomprehensible. “Convicts’ ” (Times-rated Family) intimate scale makes it a natural for public television.

‘Convicts’

Robert Duvall: Soll Gautier

Lukas Haas: Horace Robedaux

James Earl Jones: Ben Johnson

Starletta DuPois: Martha Johnson

An M.C.E.G. presentation. Director Peter Masterson. Producers Jonathan D. Krane, Sterling VanWagenen,. Screenplay by Horton Foote; based on his play “Convicts.” Cinematographer Toyomichi Kurita. Editor Jill Savitt. Costumes Nile H. Samples. Music Peter Melnick. Production design Dan Bishop. Art director Dianna Freas. Set decorator Michael Martin. Sound Sound One New York. Running time: 1 hour, 33 minutes.

MPAA-rated Times-rated Family (suitable for all ages).