In the 1940s South, an African-American man is wrongly accused of the killing a a white store owner. In his defense, his white attorney equates him with a lowly hog, to indicate that he didn't have the sense to know what he was doing. Nevertheless convicted, he is sentenced to die, but his godmother and the aunt of the local schoolteacher convince school teacher go to the convicted man's cell each day to try to reaffirm to him that he is not an animal but a man with dignity.
Don Cheadle
as Grant Wiggins
Cicely Tyson
as Tante Lou
Mekhi Phifer
as Jefferson
Irma P. Hall
as Miss Emma
Brent Jennings
as Reverend Ambrose
Lisa Arrindell
as Vivian Baptiste
Dana Ivey
as Edna Guidry
Frank Hoyt Taylor
as Sheriff Guidry
Stuart Culpepper
as Henri Pichot
Von Coulter
as Farrell Jarreau
Elijah Kelley
as Clarence
Wynton Yates
as Louis Washington
