Photo by: Robin Wright Penn stars as Mary Surratt, a scapegoat for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, who s

“The Conspirator” is a great film with a star-studded cast, infused with interesting (and even historically accurate) facts, beautiful sets and a compelling plot. However, this is not the story of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination; this is the story of Mary Surratt – a southern martyr.

James McAvoy plays Frederick Aiken, a Civil War veteran of the Union and a lawyer. When Lincoln is assassinated, the entire nation desperately begins looking for vengeance, and their eyes fall on Mary Surratt (Robin Wright Penn), an old southern widow and mother of John Surratt (Jonny Simmons). John has disappeared, after his involvement with the assassination, allowing Mary to become the perfect scapegoat.

Frederick grudgingly becomes her lawyer. The bond between the southern mother and Union soldier is, sufficed to say, awkward at the beginning. Over time, Frederick realizes that this poor woman is innocent and needs to be saved.

Viewers with a taste for history will love this movie. Not only is it a profound and ultimately disappointing chapter in the United States’ history, but it is also a story that few are aware of.

It is scary to see the tyrannical power of a government that many would think would have kept its hands clean. After all ,Lincoln, the most praiseworthy president in our nation’s history, was the one that leading it.

While there is plenty of history, the film is heavily coated with courtroom scenes, questioning of suspects and evidence-gathering. A good three-fourths of this film is devoted solely to the trial.

This means that Lincoln’s assassination becomes a skip-over scene. Viewers looking for a movie about the president will not be seeing much of him.

Director Robert Redford could have given the ax to a few of the scenes, especially the first one.

This involves Frederick being injured during a Civil War battle. There is little time for the audience to be emotionally dragged in, nor does it pertain to the overall storyline.

Tom Wilkinson plays as Reverdy Johnson, and although his role is limited, he is outstanding as usual (“In the Bedroom,” “Michael Clayton”). Frederick’s girlfriend, played by Alexis Bledel, is also somewhat absent, along with Justin Long’s character, another Civil War veteran.

With such a good cast, most of the movie only follows McAvoy around, which is too bad because Wilkinson, Bledel, Long and Penn are not on screen as much as the audience might wish.

Overall, a horrifying time period is revealed in “The Conspirator” and not because of Lincoln’s murder. The best moments of this movie are the mistakes the country makes in the aftermath of one of its greatest tragedies. The worst is not seeing much of the great cast, yet McAvoy does just fine on his own, even with the beard.