Rating: PG13
Genre:
Drama
Release Date: 06/22/1999
SubTitles: English/French/Espanol
Dubbed: English
Sound: 2/5.1
Run Time: 171 min
Distributor/Studio: Lions Gate
Originally aired as a two-part miniseries on
NBC,
The 60's follows two families whose lives mirror much of the political and social tumult of that decade. The Herlihys are a working class family from Chicago whose three children take wildly divergent paths: Brian (
Jerry O'Connell) joins the Marines right out of High School and goes to Vietnam, Michael (
Josh Hamilton) becomes involved in the civil rights movement and after campaigning for
Bobby Kennedy and
Eugene McCarthy becomes involved in radical politics, and Katie (
Julia Stiles) gets pregnant, moves to San Francisco and joins a hippie commune. Meanwhile, the Taylors are an African-American family living in the deep South. When Willie Taylor (
Charles S. Dutton), a minister and civil rights organizer, is shot to death, his son Emmet (
Leonard Roberts) moves to the city and eventually joins the Black Panthers, serving as a bodyguard for Fred Hampton (
David Alan Grier).
The 60's incorporates much newsreel footage from the era in an attempt to give the proceedings a greater realism, as well as a soundtrack of many popular songs of the era, including a new recording of
Bob Dylan's
Chimes Of Freedom by
Dylan and
Joan Osborne.
~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide