Matewan ranks in the best of the 80's. John Sayles much overlooked tale based on the true events that occurred in the title town. Sayles recreates the past with pastoral images and glowing light. Chris Cooper's Luddite persona and Christlike attitude captures the heart and is evenly balanced by the antagonist's in the film.

The cast is phenomenal. David Straitharn is the dark rider sheriff with a good heart. The final showdown is powerful and sad.

West Virginia is beautifully captured. Cinematography was the only category the Academy of Arts and Sciences recognized as nominating.

The film captures the desperation and determination of people who had very little and were treated like slaves. The Coal Company tried to break the formation of a Union by infecting it with racism and violence. That was the mindset.

The film is spiritual and lyrical showcasing the beauty and creativity of a much overlooked director.

A labor union organizer (Chris Cooper) comes to an embattled mining community brutally and violently dominated and harassed by the mining company.

The problem with a union movie is that today (2016) the union movement is more controversial than ever. But making it a historical film sort of softens that blow. If anyone needed a union, it was the coal miners of West Virginia who were literally dying on the job. And the film ever mentions the use of company scrip, which is a nice touch because it seems to have been a major problem in its day.

Chris Cooper deserves recognition for this film. I feel like he is an actor who has always been under the radar, maybe just being a face people know but a name that never seems to be talked about. Fans of Cooper really ought to start here.

The recent mining accident not only underscores the dangers of mining, but what happens when the government is aligned with the mining companies against the workers (specifically, Bush is probably the most rabidly anti-labor president in history; at least in the last eighty years). "Matewan" shows these sorts of things in the early 20th century, when miners led by Joe Kenehan (Chris Cooper) went on strike against a mining company in West Virginia. It shows how the company tries to hire blacks and immigrants as scabs, so as to "divide and conquer", but the miners get the scabs to join the union; the mining company then goes into attack mode. All in all, this is a great look at a battle that continues to this day, and it affirms John Sayles as probably the greatest director alive today. As Howard Zinn once noted: "The history of the United States is a history of labor struggles."