After I watched Heat of the Night for the first time, I was surprised by how the movie turned out. I knew it was supposed to be a murder mystery, but I just expected it to be different. I expected it to be more like a modern day murder mystery where they keep dropping clues and the whole point of the movie was to find out who did it. This movie was more than that because they were showing a more deep and serious story when talking about racism and injustice. This movie had more of a meaning behind it that was not just finding out who killed the victim. I found that very interesting and it is what caught my attention to the movie. The setting of the movie definitely had an important part of the movie because it showed how African Americans were treated during that time.
Virgil Tibbs was the character that I had paid attention to the most. His detective skills were very good and it really showed his passion for what he does. He was treated badly the whole time because of the color of his skin, but he never gave up. He knew that he was the only one working on the case that could solve it. He would start to walk away and then would see that everyone else was missing key clues that would solve the mystery. If it wasn’t for him, they would have arrested the wrong person for the murder at the very beginning of the movie. He was arrested in the beginning of the movie because the townspeople and police thought he was a suspect just based on the color of his skin. I really liked how he never gave up on the case even though he knew what everyone thought about him.
A scene that really stood out to me was when Tibbs slapped Endicott in the greenhouse. He did it only because he was slapped first, but at the time the movie takes place, you never hear of a black person slapping a white man. It represented Tibbs taking back racist power and how he did it because it shows how he wants to be respected the same way any white person is respected.
Overall the movie was way more than just a murder mystery. It showed many important things like injustice and separate but equal powers. All of the characters in the movie played important roles which I liked because it wasn't like one character was more important than another. It showed how segregation affected everyone during that time.
