CTV's Milgaard: Justice at Last?
Not all the casting decisions were good choices though. Bernie Coulson is a joke as a long-haired brunet hippie friend of David. Coulson is a good comic actor, but the hair is just too frightening and too distracting. The worst complaint I can make about the film is the miscasting as far as ages go. Tracey is without equal in the role, but Jaimz Woolvett would have been a better choice if they had no choice but to stick with only one actor. He is believable as Ron Wilson both as a young man and a child.
The "Milgaard" story is an excellent example of what can happen when the train of justice derails mid-trip. If the movie is even a little accurate in the role the police played in the conviction of David Milgaard, the system may be in desperate need of an overhaul. The film took "bad cop, good cop", and took it to a whole new level of "evil cop, truly evil cop".
This film was originally slated to air much earlier than it did. In December of 1998, a judge banned CTV from airing the film, believing it would jeopardize Larry Fisher's (accused of Gail Miller's murder) chances of getting a fair trial. The end result was that the movie aired in April of 1999 all across Canada, with the exception of Saskatchewan, where Larry Fisher will be tried for the 1969 murder of Gail Miller. The film makes it very clear that the writers believe Fisher definitely killed Gail Miller. It should be noted, though, that this is their view. Until a court of law examines all the evidence and rules on it, Larry Fisher is an innocent man in the eyes of the law. There has already been one man falsely accused and imprisoned for Gail Miller's murder -- the government is going to make sure that it doesn't happen again. The only concession the film makes is to say the following..."There's no physical evidence linking Larry Fisher to the murder." Larry Miller goes on trial in October, in Yorkton, Saskatchewan.
David Milgaard will never get back his lost years, but after nearly thirty years, the government has finally awarded David Milgaard with a $10 million dollar settlement ($4 million from the federal government, $6 million from the provincial government -- the largest settlement in Canadian history), an apology, and an official statement proclaiming Milgaard's innocence. Now that he
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