I wanted to see HEAVENS FALL since some years mostly because it stars Timothy Hutton (one day I hope to finish all his movies) and Leelee Sobieski (one of the actresses of which one day I'll watch all her movies because she has the reputation of a bad actress). Last June I finally saw it and I have to say it, it's one of the best movies accounting for both also for the subject.
The story is about the Scottsboro accident in 1931 when two white women (one played by Sobieski) accuse nine black youths of r**e in the South. One day defense attorney Samuel Leibowitz (Hutton) arrives and he will do his best for defending the nine black youths also with the help of William Lee (Anthony Mackie), and he'll succedd but not after lots of trials and tribulations in the real sense of the word.
The main reason for seeing this is the acting. While Hutton and Sobieski have reputations of having half of their filmographies full of badly rated titles, here they give some of their best performances and they both seemed very natural here. A pre-Marvel movies Mackie, David Strathairn and James Tolkan give just some of their many good performances. It's also a nice 'history lesson' about a lesser known fact, it gives the message of being against racism's prejudices and the ending is some sort of relief for the viewer.
If you stumble upon this movie on YouTube (it's available there) give it a try. Even tho you don't know the subject like me it's still worth a viewing for the aforementioned reasons.
