First look at 'The Conspirator'

USA Today has a first look at Robert Redford's The Conspirator and includes some film stills featuring James McAvoy.

James McAvoy (Atonement) stars as a decorated Union soldier who reluctantly agrees to defend one of the accused, boarding-house owner Mary Surratt (Robin Wright), whose son was the lone conspirator to escape the manhunt.

"There was a question of whether she was complicit, guilty by association, or even more guilty," says Redford, who directs but doesn't star in the movie. "The lawyer that defended her didn't want to defend her. He was a Union soldier who became a lawyer." His contempt for the suspect gives way to a fear that she is being prosecuted solely to bring her fugitive son out of hiding.

..."He barely survived the war. He was very heroic and won medals for bravery in the field, and comes back and wants to go back into law, and right away he's pulled into this case because no one else will defend this woman," Redford says.

...The Conspirator is independently financed and doesn't yet have a distributor. It's the first project made by the American Film Co., which plans to create historical dramas. [Anthony Breznican]

You can get even more information on The Conspirator over at the American Film Company.

All photos by Claudette Barius, ©The American Film Company Productions