Original subtitles

Well, this may not be the most famous building in Washington, D .C., but it

might just be the most important.

I don't know, Sam.

It's a whole lot of them and just one of me. And here I thought you loved

children. I do love children. I'm an angel. That's what I do. But actually

talking to the little things and getting them to listen and stop them from

running around and fidgeting and asking question after question after question.

When children stop asking questions, That's when you have a problem.

Now, if you weren't the best angel for this job, you wouldn't be here.

But you are the perfect angel with the perfect attitude for that little boy.

name is Calvin.

Children!

Children! Anyone not in their seat in five seconds is going to spend the day

with me in the principal's office.

How'd she do that?

Thank you.

Now, Mr. Burrell has called in sick today, so there's going to be a

teacher. Mr.

Burrell told me that you all have to turn in your career projects today, so

I want you to do is to line them up against the blackboard.

Row one.

Row two.

Three.

And well, at least the children still have their dreams.

Dear Father in Heaven.

When you walk down the road,

heavy burden has...

I'll walk with you till the sun don't even shine.

Walk with you every time I tell you I'll walk

with you.

Believe me, I'll walk with you.

My name is Teth. You may call me Myth Teth.

And whatever you've been thinking about to take advantage of this situation,

please believe me, I'm way ahead of you.

Now, understand that you've got report to give.

Look at this.

I want to be a teacher.

That's very good, Tommy. Very good.

You have a problem with that?

Teachers don't make enough green.

Angela,

I think you're going to make a very nice mayor.

Yeah, I got to learn to smoke that crack first.

Get up there, Calvin.

I want to hear your report first.

When I grow up, I want to be a hitman.

Probably for the CIA.

The pay is really good.

You get to keep all your cash and Swiss bank accounts.

You don't ever have to worry about going to the same stupid office every day.

You don't ever worry about paying electric bills because you always stay

hotels. And it's really exciting because there's always somebody from a foreign

country trying to kill you until you retire in the beach in South America.

where in the library did you look all of that up?

I saw it on TV.

Sit down, Calvin.

What is the name of this school?

He was one of the best presidents this country has ever had.

He was a good man.

He was a poor man.

He... Yes, Angela?

We learned all about him last year.

Well, that's good. I'm glad, because he was a man who deserved to be learned

about.

Now, this man right here?

This man was the assassin.

The hitman, Calvin, that killed...

President Abraham Lincoln.

And it's my guess that that's all you know about him. So I'm going to tell you

story, a true story that I want everybody to listen to very carefully.

Everybody, Calvin.

Now, it was April the 14th, 1865, right here

in Washington.

Good Friday, not a dozen seats sold.

Ain't nobody goes to the theater on Good Friday.

Nobody, except the president.

I'm looking for Mr. Ford.

Got a message from the White House.

Right this way.

Right on time.

I like that in an angel.

Yes, I know.

That's why I keep it five minutes fast.

Well, it's a very different Washington these days, isn't it?

It's amazing what peace can do to people's spirits.

What you feel in this city is victory.

There's no peace here.

Especially in the hearts of the angry and the vanquished.

No, not yet.

And one heart in particular, I presume.

Andrew, set your clock to the correct time because you're going to need every

minute.

Mr. Ford!

Is it really true?

Yes.

Miss Keene, you won't be playing to an empty house tonight after all.

Andrew, there's an angel named Monica who works in enunciations.

Now, she won't be dealing with you directly, but certain messages must be

Certain arrangements must be in place in the event that you fail.

Sam, I... I...

Can't remember ever failing before. I've always had the truth on my side. That's

always seemed to be enough.

Andrew, you're one of my very best caseworkers, but angels do fail.

And humans fail, but God does not fail.

And he will not fail this time to offer the truth to a man who desperately needs

to hear it.

Now, if this man refuses to listen, well, that's his choice.

But the problem is, His choice will change the world.

Another perfumed letter.

Oh, poor Johnny. How many hearts have you broken this week? You do me wrong,

dear Miss Keene. As a matter of fact, this one happens to be from my mother.

And what does she say to a rascal like you?

Heaven guard you is my constant prayer.

Have you heard the news?

The president is coming tonight.

The president?

Here? Promise me you will come too, Johnny.

I'll be here.

You can count on it.

Till then, dear lady.

Excuse me, sir.

I believe you dropped this.

Do I detect a hint of old myths in your speech?

Well, I have spent a fair amount of time down south.

My name is Andrew.

Andrew. It's always nice to meet a fellow sympathizer.

My card.

John Wilkes Booth.

You know, there's quite a bit about dreams in this Bible, Mr. Stanton. Good

and bad ones.

Mr. Lincoln, what are we to do? About what, my dear?

General Grant and his wife are unable to attend the play this evening. We simply

must have a full box if it's to be amusing.

Perhaps the Secretary of War would join us. But surely, Mr. President, you don't

intend to go out in public this evening?

Every time your husband goes out, he risks his life.

The war is over, Mr. Secretary.

For four long years, the president has been unable to eat, to sleep, to have a

moment's peace.

Now he needs, he must have a night of rest and entertainment.

And you think a night at the theater will rid him of his bad dreams?

You told him of your dream?

No, no, my dear.

Not the contents.

Hello.

Come in.

Who are you?

I'm Monica.

I was sent by the dressmaker.

But where is Lizzie?

Lizzie does all my fittings.

It's a very special dress for a very special occasion, and I have certain

experience that Lizzie thought could be helpful.

I don't understand, but there's no time now.

Let's just go on upstairs.

Now, now, my dear, you stay here. It's much warmer in here, and Mr.

Stanton and I have a meeting down the hall. Good day.

So, Monica started work on the First Lady's dress.

What is it now, Calvin?

It's stupid.

Everybody knows you can't just walk into the President's office. You could then.

In fact, President Lincoln wouldn't even let them lock the door to the White

House.

It was a different world then.

I know it was an extravagance, and Mr. Lincoln sure to scold, but do you know

why I wanted this dress?

For him.

You see, I know I'm not young anymore, but after all these years,

the loss of two of our boys,

Dreadful war.

I wanted to remind Mr. Lincoln of our wedding day.

Maybe to remind myself.

Is that foolish?

No. I think it's lovely.

We had so many dreams back then.

Good dreams.

Not the kind he has now.

Oh, the other night he had the most dreadful nightmare.

He believes it was sent to him by God, but I don't believe that. I can't.

A dream sent by God?

Oh, maybe he shouldn't go to the theater.

Maybe it is a warning.

Why would God want to punish Mr. Lincoln, a man who puts all his trust in

Almighty? I'm sure that God doesn't want to punish your husband.

Of course not.

We'll go to the theater.

And we'll laugh.

We'll finally laugh.

Dick the Bert, your honor.

Death to all tyrants.

State motto of Virginia.

You, sir, are a gentleman and a scum.

Do I know you?

Yes. We met this morning at a theater. You gave me your card.

Ah, yes, my southern friend.

No, I'm not from the South. But you're not a Yankee.

I'm not a Yankee.

What state are you from?

I like to think that I'm from the State of Grace.

The State of Grace.

I like that.

At least you have the soul of a southerner. Join me in a little southern

Thank you.

I, uh, wouldn't mind a sarsaparilla.

Peter!

Such gorilla for my learned friend here. And more brandy.

You know, if there were more men like you and me, Atlanta wouldn't be a pile

Yankee rubble.

All because of this.

Despot.

Pirate.

Lincoln.

Tell me, sir, what sort of pirate?

Champions equal rights for all men. What about my rights?

The right to own slaves. It's in the Bible. The Bible acknowledges that

existed.

God didn't make anyone a slave.

People made people slaves.

And slavery, sir, is an abomination.

Here you are, sir.

You're a gentleman.

I'm a gentleman. We can agree to disagree, right?

Yes. You can go your way, I can go mine, right?

Then why can't the states do the same? If the South can't agree with the North,

why can't we all just be gentlemen and call it a day?

Because if every disagreement dissolved the Union, there would be no marriage.

There would be no friendship. There would be no contract, no country.

Nothing but anarchy.

And that is where time has come from, sir.

You know how I picked you for a gentleman?

Breeding.

You obviously come from good stock.

The best. That's all I'm saying. You come from the best. I come from the

We give our best. We expect the best.

We tolerate nothing less.

Which is why, for example...

I will not drink in the company of niggas!

Lincoln is nothing but a tyrant, Andrew.

And we all know what happens to tyrants.

I think that he just threatened the president's life.

Well, sooner or later, the hatred in a man's heart finds its way into his

into his hands, till he finally becomes the creator of evil itself.

It's certainly as nice to see you smile, Mr. Lincoln.

Ah, Madam Dressmaker.

Yes, it's my first post -war smile, I believe.

I'm afraid my wife has just left.

I know.

It's you I've come to see, Mr. President.

I believe you've been having a bad dream.

Oh, it's nothing. It's just the self -inflicted tortures of a weary mind.

The dream didn't begin in your mind, sir.

It comes from the mind of God.

God? He has used dreams to speak to great leaders in the past.

What are you, another one of Mary's spiritualists?

No.

Spiritualists seek messages from a mysterious beyond.

I deliver messages from God, who is neither mysterious nor beyond, but with

here, now, in this room.

You are an angel.

Yes.

Be not afraid.

Be not afraid.

The Annunciation of Abraham Lincoln.

There has been many a night during the last four years, angel, that I have

prayed for a visit from heaven.

And only now that the war is over, the Almighty has a message for me.

He has always answered you when you sought his counsel.

Yes, that is true, but never so dramatically.

The dream, Mr.

President.

Tell me about it, please.

There seemed to be a death -like stillness all about me.

And then I...

I heard sobs, very subdued sobbing.

So I got up out of bed and I wandered downstairs until I arrived at the East

Room. And there I met a rather unpleasant surprise.

Before me rested a corpse, a funeral baton.

Around it were soldiers and a throng of people were weeping pitifully.

Who is dead in the White House? I demanded of one of the soldiers.

The president was his answer.

He was killed by an assassin.

Has God sent me an angel to prepare me for death?

I believe your faith in God a long time ago prepared you to leave this world and

meet your creator.

But until that day comes, God...

want to reward your faithfulness by giving you some new measure of peace

I want to show you.

Each one of these is a death threat.

My best hat.

Look at this.

A bullet hole.

Went clean through.

Missed me by a hair's whisker.

Happened last spring while I was out riding.

I didn't tell Mary.

Didn't want to worry her.

I, uh, shouldn't have told her my dream.

It's going to come true, isn't it?

I cannot see into the future.

Only God, who loves you very much, can do that.

But he wants you to know this about your dream.

That no matter what happens, what matters most is that in your dream, you

walk in the halls of the White House.

And that for generations to come, children and presidents, citizens

and legislators,

Average Americans and world leaders will walk these same halls and

listen for the echo of your footsteps, hoping to hear one distant,

reassuring sound of honesty and goodness and genuine

sacrifice.

For the people of this country and the centuries to come,

will not simply honor your memory, sir.

They will need it.

They will cling to it in the days when the real heroes are hard to find.

When the little boys and little girls wonder if there was a time when

mattered more than politics.

When parents need an example of courage to point to.

They will need you.

the men and women of every race and religion who continue the struggle that

began, who will fight for freedom and fairness, who will even sacrifice their

own lives, the fighter and the dreamer, who will follow you to the mountaintop.

John?

What in blazes are you doing here?

I might ask the same of you, John.

What's the knife for?

This?

It's a prop.

I'm playing Hamlet here next month.

Hamlet killed the king, you know.

The king?

Not the president.

Who are you, Andrew?

I'm somebody who wants to help you, John.

Well, I appreciate the offer, friend, but I don't need any help.

I think you do.

I believe that you are an interloper.

What we refer to in the theater as the mysterious stranger who entered to

complicate the plot. What is the plot, Mr. Booth?

You see that portrait of Washington there?

I do.

Washington had slaves, you know.

So did Jefferson and Madison and Monroe. And it took their revolution.

to allow for this emancipation of men and of women and children from

in slavery and in bondage. He wants to emancipate the country?

I say it's time someone emancipated the country from Mr.

Lincoln.

You disagree so violently with the president.

Why didn't you just join the Confederate Army and fight for what you believed

in?

Well...

They also serve who stand and wait for the right

time.

Mr. Booth, there is never a right time

for something like this.

Okay, here comes the good part.

John Wilkes Booth sneaks into the back and pow!

Just think what he could have done with an AK -47.

Or an Uzi. Yeah.

Will you stop it? This is not a movie.

Something that you can rewind and run over and over again until you don't feel

anything anymore.

This really happened.

Don't you understand that?

A real man lost his life.

He shed real blood.

And his child went to bed that night crying because his daddy was not coming

home. Don't you understand that?

Calvin's daddy's not coming back.

Shut up!

The president was getting ready to go to the theater. You must learn to be more

careful.

Good evening.

Yes, it is.

Monica, Mr. Lincoln has lost a button. And we've already missed the curtain.

Oh, that hat is an eyesore. Let me have it.

Mr.

Lincoln, what is this?

Another of your speeches?

Just a few thoughts I was jotting down. The only man I know who uses his hat as

a writing desk. I can't do anything with this.

I'll go get another.

I've been thinking about what you said this afternoon.

I hope it brought you some peace.

I suppose if God sends an angel to bring you peace, it's because you're going to

need it.

You okay, Mr. Blue?

I've never seen you drink whiskey before.

Well, tonight's a big night.

It sure is.

Just think,

President's right next door.

Mr. Parker says he's in a real fine mood, too.

Parker? President's bodyguard.

Right over there.

That's the President's bodyguard?

Sure is.

I'll tell you what, Peter.

I'd like to set him up with a drink.

He's going to assassinate the president.

I'm sure of that now.

I couldn't stop him with words, Sam, so I guess it's time to try to stop him

some other way. No.

If you can't stop him with the truth, Andrew, you can't stop him at all.

Listen to me.

All the lives that were lost during the Civil War, the hundreds of thousands on

both sides, broke God's heart.

And if Abraham Lincoln dies tonight,

And God will weep again.

Now, you know, he's perfectly capable of sending an angel to remove the gun from

a hand of a murderer.

He could lift the weapon from the hands of every soldier.

He could take the angry words out of the mouths of every hateful person on

earth.

He could do this.

But he doesn't.

God could change the course of history every day.

But that would mean...

There'd be no freedom left in this world. And the last thing Mr. Lincoln

ever want would be to live at the cost of freedom.

What do you say, gentlemen?

Shall we sing another round?

One more time.

There's much more work for you to do, Andrew, but not now.

Howdy.

Don't know the manners of good society, eh?

Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal.

Help me.

Help me.

Mr. President, God is with you, and he sent his angel to be with you until he

calls you home.

What are you writing there, Ken?

It's my diary.

It's for posterity.

You don't know what that means, do you, David?

How's that leg, huh?

Andrew, it's you.

Davey, this is our friend. You want to help, don't you, Andrew?

Yes, Mr. Boots.

What news do you bring us, Andrew?

President's dead, ain't he?

We shot him. I shot him.

President's dead.

And we will be remembered for it, Davey. A hundred years from now, when school

children are reading about the heroes of the South, right next to Jefferson

Davis and Robert E. Lee will be the names John Wilkes Booth and Davey

We're heroes.

What's it say, Kev?

It says we're heroes, don't it?

Captain coming for you.

Let's get out of here.

Are you with us, Andrew?

Yes, Mr. Booth.

The end.

The bitter end.

That's

lunch.

Now, after lunch, you have an art class with Mrs.

Nordstrom and a physical education class with Mr. Bonato, and then you're

dismissed. This is goodbye, so thanks for your attention.

Will you come back and finish your story someday?

Of course I will, darling.

Okay.

What was the bitter end like?

Are you sure you want to know?

It might change your career plans.

terrible day, Calvin. One man pulled the trigger and broke every heart in

America.

Move! Move!

What are we going to do now, Captain?

And where did Andrew go? You think he ran out the back?

Hunted down like a dog.

I am in despair.

You said we'd be heroes.

Shut up!

Surrender!

No, my friend.

You've not forsaken us.

It's amazing.

The light from the fire, it illuminates you.

You look like some sort of avenging angel.

It's quite theatrical, actually.

I am an angel, John.

Sent by God.

No doubt God wishes to congratulate me.

have done just what he wanted me to do.

No.

What you have done was not ordained by God. What you have done is murder a

being in cold blood.

And yet by the grace of that same God, there is still time for you to trade

shame for mercy. There is no shame.

And I need no mercy.

I have avenged the glorious self.

You have avenged nothing.

You have achieved nothing except for the wrath of God.

And even now he offers you a choice.

You can choose forgiveness and peace or separation from him forever.

Your God can keep his forgiveness.

I have my revenge.

It won't be long now.

There's still time, John.

You don't have to die alone.

I can't.

Can't what?

My hands.

What? He puts them in front of my face.

Why?

Please. Put his hands over there.

Useless. What's useless?

John, it's never useless to pray, but the time is now for...

You did your best, Andrew.

You knew I'd fail from the beginning.

No, not really.

A heart can change in an instant.

And each heart must be given that chance. But some hearts, well, sometimes

heart is already dead long before the man dies.

It's over?

For him, yes.

But there's still something left to be done.

But that requires a different kind of angel.

I know it usually happens right away, but the father had a purpose.

And he has new work for you, Andrew.

An angel of death?

It'll be a privilege.

Hello, Abraham.

My name's Andrew.

We are not enemies, but friends.

We must not be enemies.

Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.

The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave

to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet

swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be.

by the better angel of our nature.

So did John Wilkes Booth go to hell?

Well, he had to make a decision, and he decided to separate himself from God.

That's about the worst hell you can imagine.

A lot of angry people do that.

Are you angry, baby?

I think you are.

I think you're angry about a lot of things.

I think you're angry because your father left.

I think you're angry because your mother works night and there's not always

enough milk.

And your house really gets cold every time it snows.

I think you're angry because you got holes in your shoes.

Shut up! Shut up!

And I'll tell you something else.

I don't think you want to be a hitman.

I think you're so angry that's all you think you can be.

And that's not true.

What do you really want to be when you grow up, Calvin?

Tell Tess the truth.

No. And why not?

You're going to laugh at me. I will not.

Everybody else does.

I don't care. I promise, whatever it is, I will not laugh.

Okay.

When I grow up, I want to be the president of the United States.

That's what I was going to do my project on at first, but everybody kept making

stupid jokes.

Nobody wants to be the president anymore.

Don't you ever feel ashamed that you want to be the president?

That's a fine goal.

Where would we be if the little boys and little girls stopped dreaming of being

president? Where would this country be if the children stopped dreaming of how

to make it a better place to live?

Do you think it's okay?

I certainly do.

Do you know that Abe Lincoln didn't have any shoes sometimes?

And he didn't have any heat in his cabin or nice clothes.

He didn't even have a school to go to.

But he worked hard.

And he believed in himself and in God.

So when he got angry, he didn't use a gun. He used his brain and his heart.

So when they called him Honest Abe, that wasn't a spin doctor talking.

That was the truth.

There are honest people, Calvin, who deserve to be your hero.

Like Abe Lincoln.

like your mama, Calvin.

And I tell you something else.

God can make a hero out of you if you let him.

Now, when you become president and you walk into that Oval Office, there's

to be an angel there waiting for you.

And I want you to make me a promise that you will listen to that angel and

listen real hard.

Okay. Promise.

Don't tell me.

Tell him.