The Man Who Came Back (2008 film)

{{Infobox film

| name = The Man Who Came Back

| image = The-man-who-came-back-20081224115500285-000.jpg

| caption = DVD cover

| director = Glen Pitre

| producer = Michelle Benoit
Stephen Bowen
Sam Cable
Chuck Walker
Christian Gudegast

| writer = Glen Pitre
Chuck Walker

| starring = Eric Braeden
Billy Zane
Sean Young
Peter Jason
George Kennedy
Armand Assante

| music = Phil Marshall

| cinematography = Stoeps Langensteiner

| editing = Matthew Booth
Simon Carmody

| distributor = Anchor Bay Entertainment
Grindstone Entertainment Group

| released = {{Film date|2008|12|09}}

| runtime = 112 minutes

| country = United States

| language = English

| budget =

| gross =

}}

The Man Who Came Back is a 2008 American Western film directed by Glen Pitre. It stars Eric Braeden, Billy Zane, George Kennedy, and Armand Assante. Set in southern Louisiana, it is loosely based on the 1887 sugar strike in four parishes and violence that erupted in the Thibodaux massacre.

Plot

The Man Who Came Back is loosely based on the Thibodaux massacre. This was the culmination of the largest strike in the sugar cane industry, when 10,000 workers stopped labor, and the first to be conducted by a formal labor organization, the Knights of Labor. With an estimated 50 or more African-American cane workers killed by white paramilitary forces, it was the second bloodiest labor strike in U.S. history.{{cite web |last=Kleinschrodt |first=Michael |date=December 4, 2008 |title=Brutal 'Man Who Came Back' is an unsatisfying story of revenge from Louisiana filmmaker Glen Pitre |url=http://blog.nola.com/michaelkleinschrodt/2008/12/brutal_man_who_came_back_is_an.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081207022855/http://blog.nola.com/michaelkleinschrodt/2008/12/brutal_man_who_came_back_is_an.html |archive-date=December 7, 2008 |accessdate=June 19, 2016 |work=NOLA.com}}

Following Reconstruction and white Democrats regaining control of the state government, in the late 1880s, freedmen worked hard on sugar cane plantations but were bound by many of the planters' practices. They were sometimes paid only in scrip, redeemable only at the plantation's overpriced store, and the workers struggled to get out of debt and be able to leave a plantation.

In an attempt to better their lives, the workers strike. This leads to massive retaliation by the most powerful men in the town, including the sheriff, the preacher, power-hungry Billy Duke, and his vigilante group of thugs.

White overseer Reese Paxton steps up to demand justice for his workers. Duke's rage turns on Paxton and his family. Despite assistance from a Yankee attorney, Paxton is convicted in a trial presided by Judge Duke, Billy's father.

After being sent to prison, beaten within inches of his life, and enduring emotional torture, Paxton "comes back" to seek revenge.