SmugKitZine Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

Fluentiama Perfect cast and a good story

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Grimossfer Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Syl I will never forget this film or the events that lead up to Jonestown in Guyana. It just seems so tragic but needs to be told. Powers Boothe give a commanding performance as the leader Rev. Jim Jones from obscurity until total madness. It would have won him an Academy Award easily if it was released in the movie theaters. It is the kind of mini-series you won't forget. You won't forget the images of the cult's brutality, control, and obsessiveness of it's leader. His rise and fall and the threat from the outside world to destroy what he considered to be paradise. The mass suicide is horrifying, almost unreal to anybody's imagination as to why so many people (900+) went willingly or resisted JOnes' orders. They don't make mini series like these anymore where we're left with out mouths open and hungry to know what happened to the others.

jjholmes7476 This is quite the gripping, fascinating, tragic story. Quite good, and for the most part pretty accurate, considering it IS a TV movie rather than a documentary. They did create some fictional characters, and combine several actual people into one character, but otherwise this is a good telling of a very tragic and dark story.The final moments of the movie, depicting the mass suicide/murder, are almost directly taken from an audio recording made by Jim Jones. This recording was made during the final 44 minutes of the Peoples Temple's existence. It is available in several places on the internet. This portion of the film is almost spot on in that regard.To sum up, a documentary this is not. However, it does cover most of the base elements to the People's Temple story.

dtucker86 This is an awesome film and Powers Boothe's performance is what makes it. When it was first broadcast on CBS-TV in 1980, Time Magazine even had an article on it. The magazine didn't think much of the film in general, but it said there is one unforgettable performance in it, "a young actor named Powers Boothe captures all the rage, power, evil and charisma of "Dad" Jim Jones. It was most unusual for them to cast a young unknown actor in such an important role, but Powers Boothe proved his worth in spades! He won an Emmy for his dynamite portrayal. There was an actor's strike at the time and he was one of the only ones who showed up to accept his award, "this may be the bravest moment of my career or the most stupid" he said. This film shows Jone's rise to power in the People Temple. Originally he was a good man of God who wanted to help others, but something went horribly wrong. Boothe captures the sinister evil that was Jim Jones, but also his charisma and charm as well. Debbie Layton was one of the few people who survived the massacre in Guyana. She knew Jones very well and said that Jones was evil but he was also very clever and good at fooling people. Jones appealed to poor blacks and people without a direction in life. He promised them a better life and a utopia in "Jonestown". The final scenes of the film detailing the horrible mass suicide in November 1978 are gut wrenching. Out of 913 dead, only Jones and his nurse had not taken poison. Boothe captures Jones rhythmic, haunting preacher cadences and his words to the dying are taken from Jone's actual words. He was recording himself at the time. We must never forget this evil man and the horror he perpetrated upon the world. Those who forget the mistakes of history are only doomed to repeat them. In Search Of...had a show on Jim Jones once and at the end the host Leonard Nimoy said that there are still people who venerate Jim Jones who sleep with his picture and who believe that he is the only person who ever loved them. That is truly sad indeed. By the way, it surprised me that Powers Boothe's career never took off the way it should have after he made this incredible debut. He beat out Henry Fonda and Jason Robards to win his Emmy. He played Phillip Marlowe in an HBO series of short films and was in A Cry For Love, Southern Comfort, Red Dawn, A Breed Apart, The Emerald Forest, Extreme Prejudice and Into The Homeland, but the only really good part he played that was close to this one was when he played Soviet spy John Walker in the 1990 tv film Family Of Spies.

virek213 Just given the fact that it is based on the most infamous mass suicide incident of modern times would have been enough to give this 2-part 1980 made-for-TV film attention. But the fact is that it is a superb recreation of the life of the Rev. Jim Jones, who built a church into a virtual empire, and then encouraged it to disintegrate into a sleazy cult in which a Congressman and his entourage were assassinated, and 917 cult followers committed suicide by drinking Kool-Aid doused with cyanide.Done very tastefully but horrifying enough, unlike the excruciatingly sadistic CULT OF THE DAMNED, GUYANA TRAGEDY features an all-star cast, including Ned Beatty (as Rep. Leo Ryan), Meg Foster, Randy Quaid, Brad Dourif, Brenda Vaccaro, LeVar Burton, and Madge Sinclair. But it is Powers Boothe (in his first big role) that really stands out as Jim Jones. He actually BECOMES the man, and his performance is riveting and chilling. Thus, it is no wonder that this film still manages to attract attention after more than twenty years.