In The Heat of The Night (AFI TOP 100)

Over this weekend I watched the movie In The Heat of The Night. The movie starts off as a murder mystery in the south during the 1950s of an important man who was going to build a factory and employ African Americans. The police officer Sam Wood, who found the body, went around town to look for possible spots where the murderer could be at. At the train station was a black man at 4:00 am in the morning with lots of money in his wallet and Sam Wood assumed, since he is a racist, that this man had to do the murder. This man was named Virgil Tibbs. He was then brought into the police station by Sam and confronted and asked to confess to the murder. Virgil was being disrespected by the police chief obviously because he was African American. He then cleared his name by admitted that he was a police officer. This movie starts off about how the police was very racist and prejudice towards African Americans and Virgil becomes a helper to the investigation and proves all the white people wrong and makes them all look stupid. He basically finds the murderer himself and stops the incompetent police force from putting innocent people to prison. Through all of this, he becomes friendly with each member of the police force and the police chief defended him after he was slapped, and then slapped back a high standing member of the community. This shows how the police chief and police force went from being a black racist, to actually start treating African Americans with respect. Virgil wanted to leave the town and go back home, but the police chief convinced him that they needed him. By the end of the movie there was a small bit of tension between Virgil and the chief which was broken by the police chief saying "Take care Virgil", and Virgil left with a smile back to him and with racism partly fixed within that small police force. I watched this movie because I wanted to watch a movie with my family and this was one of the few that my Mom haven't seen. Although my Dad have seen it, he enjoyed it enough to watch it again. I would give this movie a 8.5 out of 10 and it was definitely worth my time. It was very cool to see how Virgil became respected and treated like a person, especially after he made everyone look like an idiot and I am glad that I did watch it.