`GHOSTS': A 31-YEAR JOURNEY THROUGH SOUTHERN JUSTICE : THE FACTS.

Byline: Amy Dawes Daily News Film Critic

Forget the title - this isn't some Spanish-moss-covered story of lynchings and betrayals in the decrepit Old South - it's a very modern, true story of a remarkable murder trial in which a killer was convicted 31 years after his crime.

The case, retried in early 1994, involved slain civil-rights activist Medgar Evers and an unrepentant white supremacist named Byron De La Beckwith.

Evers, who had been denied admission to the University of Mississippi's law school on the basis of his color, worked as a field secretary for the NAACP. An outspoken activist, he had worked for 10 years to expand African-American voter registration and had filed a lawsuit against the state's then-segregated public education system on behalf of one of his sons.

Evers was shot in the back in his driveway as he returned home from work; his wife and three children ran out of the house to witness him dying.

Director Rob Reiner's movie, which takes its title from a recent nonfiction book, begins in 1963 as we watch De La Beckwith (James Woods) stake out a spot across the street from Evers' house, wait for him to come home, and get a bead on him through the sights of his deer rifle.

For the audience, there's never any suspense about who killed Medgar Evers; the suspense is about how the killer will be convicted, since he appears so casually certain that the powers that be will support him.

Indeed, De La Beckwith was released in 1963 after two trials ended in hung juries, despite being the owner of the murder weapon and being spotted at the murder scene. The ``how'' of his conviction in 1994 is the core of the movie, which recounts the story of how Bobby DeLaughter (played by Alec Baldwin), a scion of the Old South and assistant district attorney of Hindes County, resurrected the case at the urging of Evers' widow, Myrlie (Whoopi Goldberg), saw it all the way through despite political opposition and threats, and won it.

Though most moviegoers will be aware of the story's outcome, the film is structured in such a way that it is truly interesting. The suspense comes from seeing how DeLaughter and his team (including a detective played by William H. Macy of ``Fargo,'' in a funny, eccentric performance) are going to come up with new evidence so late in the day.

By now, De La Beckwith, a Ku Klux Klan member from Greenwood, Miss., had blabbed his deed at a Klan rally and to several other people. But getting those people to testify was no simple task.

De La Beckwith, as chillingly and memorably portrayed by Woods (made up to appear 74 years old for some scenes), is so unsettling a villain that it's a shame he doesn't get more screen time in the movie. With his casually shocking, completely unfettered expressions of racial hatred and his sneering confidence, it's easy to understand how he intimidated people.

Baldwin acquits himself very well in a fully human portrayal of DeLaughter, whose persistence becomes quite moving. Less successful is Whoopi Goldberg's portrayal of widow Myrlie Evers. Perhaps out of sympathy for Mrs. Evers' prolonged ordeal, Goldberg overindulges in a smug ``show me'' attitude that works against our sympathy for her and begins to grate as it demeans DeLaughter and his work.

In a movie year already saturated with racially fired melodramas from author John Grisham (``A Time to Kill,'' ``The Chamber''), ``Ghosts of Mississippi,'' easily the most relevant and worthwhile of the three, may have an uphill battle in attracting an audience.

Reiner (``Misery,'' ``A Few Good Men'') has made a sober and responsible movie that mostly avoids the gratuitous button-pushing of Grisham's stir-'em-ups. Though it focuses on DeLaughter's journey, ``Ghosts of Mississippi'' is ultimately the story of how the world changed around De La Beckwith, a man who was once so smugly certain of his place in it. That transformation, even more than the jury's verdict, is the real triumph.

The film: ``Ghosts of Mississippi'' (PG-13; violence, racism).

The stars: Alec Baldwin, James Woods, Whoopi Goldberg, William H. Macy, Craig T. Nelson.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Rob Reiner. Screenplay by Lewis Colick. Produced by Fred Zollo, Nicholas Paleologos, Andrew Sheinman and Rob Reiner. Released by Columbia Pictures.

Running time: Two hours, three minutes.

Playing: Selected theaters.

Our rating: three stars.