Amid the overkill, there are scenes of a sudden and startling beauty, and the impotent ranks of teachers are played by a cast of surprising (if underused) power, including Marcia Gay Harden, Christina Hendricks, Blythe Danner, William Petersen, Lucy Liu, a tweedy Tim Blake Nelson, and, best of all, James Caan.
The Senate boss, Finance Committee Chairman Nelson Aldrich, together with President William Howard Taft concocted a compromise to stop the income tax bill that the House had passed.