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SELECTED MOVIE PICKS ABOUT
THE LAW, LAWYERS, AND COURTROOM BATTLES
List compiled by John Tessner
Hamline University Law Library, Head of Public Services (retired)
All reviews are taken from the New York Times. Individual reviewers are noted at the end of the review. Some reviews are favorable, others are not. Most titles are dramas, with a sprinkling of comedies. Some foreign language titles have been included. Most video/dvd rental stores and public libraries have these titles. The linked titles may be checked out of the Carver County Library.
ACCUSED, THE
1988. Paramount Home Video. 1:50. R.
Jodie Foster won an Oscar as the victim of a boozy gang rape in the back room of a bar. Kelly McGillis is Katheryn Murphy, the assistant district attorney who, after letting the rapists plea bargain their way to lesser charges, prosecutes three of the witnesses on grounds that they actively encouraged the assault. Jonathan Kaplan's film "is consistently engrossing melodrama, modest in its aims and as effective for the cliches it avoids as for the clear eye through which it sees its working-class American lives." (Canby)
ADAM’S RIB
1949. MGM/UA. 1:41. No rating
Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy are opposing lawyers as well as husband and wife in the George Cukor film, with a screenplay by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin. This comedy is an enjoyable farce that pits husband-and-wife attorneys against each other on opposite sides of a murder case, with the battle spilling over into their private lives. (Contrary to what some may think, lawyers can't always slug it out in the courtroom all morning and then have a pleasant lunch together.) It's highly unlikely that a husband and wife could end up on opposite sides of the courtroom in real life. Nevertheless, the film is splendid entertainment, given the outrageous circumstances.
ADVOCATE, THE
1994. Miramax. 1:42. R.
In the 15th century, a Parisian lawyer (Colin Firth) becomes a public defender in a small country town ruled by a despotic feudal lord (Nicol Williamson). In these parts and times, some of the best legal arguing is done on behalf of animals accused of having sex with humans, and anything on the docket is likely to be a consequence of the ribaldry and cruelty flourishing all about. Wenches rollick; naked prisoners shiver in dungeons, and an urbane cast that includes Ian Holm and Donald Pleasence walks through a film whose main selling points turn out to be crassness and curiosity value (Maslin).
AMISTAD
1998. Dreamworks. 2:25. R
Starring Djimon Hounsou, Anthony Hopkins and Matthew McConaughey. Directed by Steven Spielberg. Irrefutably worthy in its attention to a long-overlooked chapter in American history, this story of a slave mutiny and subsequent trial is still a film whose zestiest character is John Quincy Adams (played by Mr. Hopkins). It has great earnestness, impeccable credentials and Mr. Spielberg's great storytelling power. But what it lacks is an Oskar Schindler, a flawed, three-dimensional character through whom the atrocity of slavery can be understood. The best moments in this long, instructive tale are those that simply bring the slaves' pride, fear and outrage to life. Mr. McConaughey, the weak link in casting that includes Nigel Hawthorne as Martin Van Buren, should cease and desist from playing any more smart lawyers (Maslin).
ANATOMY OF A MURDER
1959. Columbia Tri-Star. 2:40. No rating
Goaded by a shrewd prosecutor (George C. Scott), James Stewart defends an Army lieutenant (Ben Gazzara) who killed the man who raped his wife (Lee Remick). Jimmy Stewart and Lee Remick are first-rate in this Otto Preminger film. A crisply acted drama about a murder in a small town. The film expertly outlines how a lawyer prepares a case for trial, and delineates the doubts the attorney can face about his ability to vigorously protect his client's rights.
BADGE OF THE ASSASSIN
1985. Vidmark. 1:36. R.
James Woods plays a young assistant district attorney in this made-for-TV account of the detective work and prosecution that resulted in the 1975 conviction of the Black Liberation Army members who, four years earlier, had shot to death two New York City police officers. Mr. Woods brings "a nice mixture of intensity, warmth, subdued humor and occasional self-doubt" to the role and is "well supported by Yaphet Kotto and Alex Rocco as the New York detectives assigned to the case." (Van Gelder)
BODY HEAT
1981. Warner. 1:53. R.
When Ned Racine (William Hurt), the libidinous, slightly down-at-the-heels lawyer meets Matty Walker, she drives him wild. Matty (Kathleen Turner) is a rich and unhappily married beauty in a clinging white dress, and she means to arouse in Ned a sexual longing so powerful it will make him absolutely ruthless. Ned and Matty embark upon a sexual tryst which ends in the death of Matty's very unwanted husband. Richard Crenna, Mickey Rourke, Ted Danson and J.A. Preston co-star. (Maslin)
BODY OF EVIDENCE
1993. MGM/UA. 1:41. R.
With her marketability riding on the singularity of her projects, Madonna unaccountably lands herself in a sluggish courtroom drama offering little new in the way of format and risks making her laughable as well. As Rebecca Carlson, she is accused of using her body as a weapon to kill an older lover, who dies during a session with handcuffs and nipple clamps. Rebecca's lawyer (Willem Dafoe) is bright, but just not the kind of guy to be thrashing around sadomasochistically with his client on the top of automobiles. "As major corporate decisions go, 'Body of Evidence' ranks with the Edsel" (Canby).
BREAKER MORANT
1979. Fox Lorber. 1:47: No rating.
This Australian film chronicles the true story of three Australian soldiers court-martialed for political reasons during the Boer War. The Bruce Beresford film is similar to Paths of Glory in its view of courts-martial.
CAINE MUTINY, THE
1954. Columbia Tristar. 2:05. No rating
Stars Jose Ferrer and Humphrey Bogart, who is brilliant as the incompetent, paranoid Capt. Queeg. The climax of Edward Dmytryk's naval drama comes during the court-martial of officers who mutinied against Queeg, when Bogart breaks down under the prosecution's intense cross-examination. Many young trial attorneys wish that just once in their careers they could so thoroughly destroy a witness' credibility.
CAPE FEAR
1991. MCA/Universal. 2:08. R.
Tattooed and combat ready, Max Cady (Robert De Niro) turns up in leafy New Essex to settle accounts with his old defense attorney Sam Bowden (Nick Nolte), who failed to get him acquitted on a rape charge. Max, it develops, taught himself to read in prison and discovered, among other things, that Bowden suppressed evidence that might have spared Cady a long stretch. To say that this warrants Bowden's execution in Cady's mind is to trivialize what Max has planned for the counselor -- after some terror games with Sam's wife (Jessica Lange) and sexually inquisitive teen-age daughter (Juliette Lewis). A feverish remake of J. Lee Thompson's "Cape Fear" (1962), Martin Scorsese's film at times goes over the top, becoming "so fiendishly funny that it qualifies as a horror film" (Canby).
CARLITO'S WAY
1993. MCA/Universal. 2:25. R.
What the world might not exactly need another of is a big, boffo Al Pacino gangster movie, but here it is anyway so get set for the usual vast entertainment. This time Mr. Pacino is a supremely savvy, reliably big-hearted former drug dealer trying to raise some money in Spanish Harlem so he can go off and be a car dealer in the Bahamas. Right. As his scuzzy lawyer pal there is Sean Penn in a fine performance, and for romance there is Penelope Ann Miller as a would-be ballerina who works in a strip club. And there is also the director, Brian De Palma, delivering a droll portrait of the disco years as seen through a bemused, jaundiced eye (Maslin).
CASTLE, THE
1999. Miramax. 1:24. R.
The dwelling of the title may be a dilapidated eyesore built on toxic landfill, but Darryl Kerrigan (Michael Caton), a happy-go-lucky Australian tow-truck driver, fights to save his home from demolition. A sentimentalized version of a John Waters family, the wacky Kerrigans -- Darryl, his wife and four children – revel in the sheer tackiness of the place, which is a veritable palace compared to his summer retreat under high-voltage lines by a grim little lake. "If 'The Castle' is essentially a one-joke movie, the sheer giddy stamina with which it insists on the Kerrigans' joie de vivre keeps it afloat" (Holden).
CITIZEN COHN
1992. HBO. 1:42. R.
In a hospital bed, dying of AIDS, the lawyer Roy Cohn (James Woods) flashes back to his days as a prosecutor of Ethel Rosenberg, as a Commie hunter with Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy (Joe Don Baker) and as a persecutor of Jews and homosexuals (though he is both himself) during his years as a power broker. David Franzoni's script, based on Nicholas von Hoffman's biography, presents a man who loved every nasty minute and at the end is still trying to make a case for himself. With its ponderously drawn characters, Frank Pierson's film resembles a "Jacobean horror show without the poetry" (Goodman).
CIVIL ACTION, A
1998. Touchstone. 1:53. PG-13.
A self-serving Boston lawyer, Jan Schlichtmann (John Travoltat) at first doesn't see much promise in the case of a group of citizens whose children have been poisoned by a river. Then he spies some sudsy water and traces it to a tannery with links to deep-pocketed corporations. For Schlichtmann that might have spelled a big pay day in a movie with the standard conspiracy and environmental ramifications. Instead, Steven Zaillian's film avoids anything that obvious in "a finely nuanced tale of right, wrong and the gray area in between." (Maslin)
CLASS ACTION
1991. Fox. 1:50. R.
As a lawyer at the service of underdogs and important issues, Jedediah Tucker Ward (Gene Hackman) takes the case of a man badly burned in an automobile accident. On the other side, defending the negligent car company, is Jedediah's daughter Maggie (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio). Out of court, Jedediah the bearer of public causes turns into Jedediah the intimidator of his family. In court "there's never a minute's doubt about what is obliged to happen next, or why" (Canby).
CLIENT, THE
1994. Warner. 2:01. PG-13.
Matching the slick setup in John Grisham's best seller, Joel Schumacher's thriller opens with 11-year-old Mark Sway (Brad Renfro) as he witnesses the histrionic suicide of a Mafia lawyer moments after this man had told him where the mob has planted the body of a recently dispatched United States senator. From there, though, the pace slows. As a politically ambitious United States Attorney who badgers the boy about the corpse's whereabouts, Tommy Lee Jones performs with a lazy drawl made for talk shows and a menace that sets a cadre of flunkies jumping. He and Susan Sarandon, as a lawyer representing Mark, and Mr. Renfro have the skills to make the film more believable than it has any right to be. (Maslin)
CRY IN THE DARK, A
1988. Warner. 2:01. PG-13.
In 1980, while on a camping trip in the Australian outback with her parents, 5-week-old Azaria Chamberlain disappeared from the tent while her mother, Lindy Chamberlain (Meryl Streep), and her father, Michael Chamberlain (Sam Neill), a Seventh-Day Adventist minister, were sharing a cookout with friends a few feet away. Lindy Chamberlain had seen a dingo, slipping out of the family's tent and immediately sounded the alarm. In the search that followed, the child's bloody nightdress was found, but not the body. The local coroner ruled that the evidence suggested the baby had been abducted by the animal and probably killed. The case didn't end there, however. On the basis of forensic evidence that later proved extremely faulty, the case was reopened and, as a result, Lindy Chamberlain was tried for the murder of her baby and her husband as an accessory after the fact. Helping to whip up the hysteria were newspaper and television reporters. The parents were faulted for not having seemed more distraught immediately after the baby disappeared. The public wanted more tears, more visible signs of grief and torment. The Chamberlains were noticeably "different," possibly because they belonged to what the reporters referred to as a "cult." There were even suggestions the baby had been the victim of a ritual sacrifice. (Canby)
DEFENDING YOUR LIFE
1991. Warner. 1:52. PG-13
As a yuppie freshly killed in his BMW, Daniel Miller (Albert Brooks) is packed off to Judgment City, a sort of suburban holding pen in the sky where his earthly existence is reviewed and graded before his assignment in the hereafter. There he encounters Julia (Meryl Streep), whose flawless performance down below marks her for big things in the great beyond. Mr. Brooks, who directed and wrote the screenplay, is known for fast, quirky comedy, but many of this film's devices, including the courtroom flashbacks to Daniel's past, require a lot of setup before they begin to move (Maslin).
DEFENSELESS
1991. LIVE. 1:46. R.
T. K. Katwuller (Barbara Hershey) is a lawyer with a lover for a client and trouble in increasing doses. For one, her boyfriend stands accused of renting a building he owns to makers of pornographic films, this added to the coincidence that his wife (Mary Beth Hurt) turns out to be Ms. Katwuller's old college roommate. Just as T. K. is getting acclimated to that, she finds herself the prime suspect in a murder case being investigated by a sharp police detective (Sam Shepard). Martin Campbell's film has its weak spots, but a good cast pulls the plot through the loopholes and turns it into an "effective, diverting little suspense film" (James).
DEVIL'S ADVOCATE
1997. Warner. 2:24. R.
In this movie guise, Satan goes by the name of John Milton (Al Pacino, left) and dangles promises of a lucrative paradise gained in front of the slick yuppie lawyer Kevin Lomax (Keanu Reeves). Rescued from sleazy cases in Florida, Kevin is lured to Manhattan by Milton's very major law firm, which does business in places like the Balkans and the Middle East. But once in the big, bad city it gradually becomes clear to young Lomax that he's on a Faustian fast track. With convincingly devilish effects, Taylor Hackford's film becomes a lavish-looking, cleverly entertaining morality play. (Maslin)
DISCLOSURE
1994. WarnerTime Warner. 2:03. R..
The yuppie honcho Meredith Johnson (Demi Moore) likes, as she puts it, "all the boys under me to be happy," and that includes Tom Sanders (Michael Douglas), a software man who gets Meredith as a boss at a Seattle-based computer company. In Barry Levinson's adaptation of Michael Crichton's novel about reverse sexual harassment, Meredith's sexual assault on Tom, which leads to charges and a hearing, is as funny as it is heated. After that, though, eroticism and technology get confused, Janet Maslin wrote in The New York Times, in a film that becomes "talky and uneventful."
DIVORCE ITALIAN STYLE
1962. Hen's Tooth. 1:44.
A jaded Sicilian (Marcello Mastroianni) steers his domineering wife into an affair, thereby giving him reason to shoot her and, if he can hang onto his cool and bring it off, marry his sultry 16-year-old cousin. The real trick, though, is to lust and kill in such a way as to earn the sympathy and even admiration of the local citizenry. Such a scheme naturally requires the most rigorous planning, from the recruiting of a plausible lover for the wife to proper placement of a tape recorder to gather evidence of their liaison, to the selection of a lawyer who can present the case with a straight face. That all doesn't go just right is to be expected in Pietro Germi's film, which won an Oscar and is memorable for a finely shaded performance by Mr. Mastroianni.
DRY WHITE SEASON, A
1989. CBS/Fox. 1:33. R.
Euzhan Palcy's story of apartheid regularly cuts from black characters being abused in police stations to complacent whites fondling their babies in the sunshine, an approach that would seem glib were the film not so powerful. Ben du Toit (Donald Sutherland) is a teacher who gradually becomes aware of the horrors around him. Marlon Brando makes an effective appearance as a lawyer. The film has a "frankness and sincerity" that work best "when it avoids flourishes and concentrates simply and forcefully on the painful story at hand." (Maslin)
ENEMY OF THE STATE
1998. Touchstone. 2:07. R
Unwittingly stuck with a videotape showing the murder of a Congressman, the straight-shooting lawyer Robert Clayton Dean (Will Smith) runs for his life. Seems the killing is tied to a scheme hatched by a National Security Agency higher-up (Jon Voight) to wire the entire country for surveillance. As it stands already, the agency has Dean wired right down to his trousers, which he has to get rid off at high speed if he's to shed his pursuers. With its snazzy equipment and wild chases, Tony Scott's film keeps "the story moving faster than the speed of scrutiny" (Maslin).
ERIN BROCKOVICH
2000. Universal. 2:07. R.
With two children to support, Erin (Julia Roberts) goes to work for an ambulance-chasing lawyer named Ed Masry (Albert Finney) and turns up evidence that a power company has been killing and maiming people with chromium emissions. Combining a feisty attitude with short skirts and tight blouses, Eringenerates more attention than the average investigator, and soon Ed has the country's largest lawsuit on his docket. Early on, Steven Soderbergh's film crackles with Erin's abrasivesness. Later it becomes "a doggedly conventional crusader-for-justice Hollywood soap opera" (Scott).
FATAL ATTRACTION
1987. Paramount Home Video. 1:59. R.
Adrian Lyne's romantic thriller has been called a morality play for the 80's, a monster movie for the age of AIDS. A popular and critical hit when it was released last fall, it garnered six Oscar nominations and aroused much public discussion about its theme - the price of infidelity. At the heart of the movie, at least in the beginning, is a torrid romance. An unmarried career woman, Alex Forrest (Glenn Close), meets lawyer Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas), a happily married man, at a party, then again at a weekend business meeting. They get caught in the rain, duck into a bar for drinks, and a seduction is soon under way. But while Dan wants to end the affair, Alex desperately and grimly holds on - with murderous repercussions that threaten to destroy Dan's family. This is a ''powerful cautionary tale,'' and it plays skillfully upon ''a growing societal emphasis on marriage and family, shrewdly offering something for everyone: the desperation of an unmarried career woman, the recklessness of a supposedly satisfied husband, the worries of a betrayed wife.'' (Maslin)
FEW GOOD MEN, A
1992. Castle Rock. 2:20. R.
The role doesn't have to be big, but if it's good, and if the actor playing it is great, the results can be magically transforming. Witness Jack Nicholson's vicious, funny, superbly reptilian turn in Rob Reiner's entertaining courtroom drama, "A Few Good Men". The story is this: in the course of what appears to be a hazing incident at Guantanamo, a Marine private has died, apparently poisoned by the rag stuffed into his throat before his mouth was taped. Two enlisted men are charged with the murder. As often happens during proceedings of this sort, the victim and the men on trial become less important than the politics surrounding the case. The Marine Corps would like to wrap it up as quickly and efficiently as possible. To this end, a hot-shot young naval lawyer, Lieu. (j.g.) Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise), is assigned to the defense with the understanding that he'll persuade the defendants to accept a plea bargain. Also assigned to the defense is Lieut. Comdr. JoAnne Galloway (Demi Moore), who acts as Kaffee's conscience, eventually persuading him that there is a strong possibility that the two enlisted men were, in fact, acting on orders from their officers. Kevin Bacon, Kiefer Sutherland and Kevin Pollak co-star. (Canby)
FIRM, THE
1993. Paramount Home Video. 2:34. R.
Mitch McDeere (Tom Cruise), a bright young man, born poor and deprived, lusts for the good things in life. He graduates from Harvard Law School near the top of his class and joins a small, conservative, very rich firm of tax and corporate law specialists in Memphis. Almost immediately, he discovers that he has sold his soul to the devil. The firm of Bendini, Lambert & Locke is a front for a conspiracy of delicious malevolence and, early on, anyway, quite persuasive complexity. Only its senior partners know its full scope. The firm has a policy of bringing aboard crackerjack young lawyers of Mitch's hungry background, and then overpaying and materially spoiling them to the point that when they find out the firm's true nature, they can't afford to quit. There are only two ways for lawyers to exit Bendini, Lambert & Locke. They can stick around until they retire as thoroughly compromised, multi-millionaire senior partners, or they die before their time in mysterious circumstances. Gene Hackman, Hal Holbrook, Ed Harris and Holly Hunter co-star. (Canby)
FISH CALLED WANDA , A
1988. MGM/UA. 1:48. R.
Four misfits come together in this English caper-comedy to rob a London jeweler, and then spend the rest of the movie double-crossing each other. They are Wanda Gershwitz (Jamie Lee Curtis), a larcenous American woman; Otto West (Kevin Kline), whom Wanda introduces as her brother, though he is, like every other man in the film, a lover; Ken Pile (Michael Palin), whose job, it seems, is simply to stutter, and George (Tom Georgeson), the leader of the gang and the only one who knows where the jewels have been hidden after the robbery. When George is arrested, John Cleese, as Archie Leach, an uptight barrister, is hired to defend him. Because Wanda thinks that George will tell Archie where the jewels are, she throws herself at the proper barrister with results that aren't entirely surprising. (Canby)
GINGERBREAD MAN, THE
1998. Polygram. 1:55. R.
Robert Altman becomes the latest name director to adapt a John Grisham mystery. During a rainstorm in an evocatively depicted Savannah, the divorced legal hotshot Rick Magruder (Kenneth Branagh) meets a mysterious woman in fishnet stockings (Embeth Davidtz). Before he knows it she's peeling off those wet clothes, and he's easing into hot water he'd be better off avoiding, like how to deal with her crazed father (Robert Duvall). Particularly well-suited to Mr. Altman's atmospheric style, thefilm is his "best genre piece since 'The Long Goodbye.' " (Maslin).
GUILTY AS SIN
1993. Hollywood. 1:47. R.
David Greenhill (Don Johnson) is a slick character who stands accused of throwing his wife out a window. For the defense there is Jennifer Haines (Rebecca De Mornay), a ravishing attorney with a certain way of sashaying past a jury. Jennifer is a famous lawyer with lots of smarts or, after Greenhill waves a knife around and lets fly with some incriminating remarks, at least brains enough to realize he might be guilty of not only this crime but others as well. With that established, Sidney Lumet's film tries to pick up steam as a malevolent game between client and attorney, but even as the story grows progressively stranger, it never generates suspense (Maslin).
HANDS OF A STRANGER
1987. Worldvision. 2:59. No rating.
With a screenplay by Arthur Kopit, this made-for-television adaptation of Robert Daley's novel probes the murky world of criminal courts and police precinct houses. Armand Assante plays a workaholic detective investigating the rape of his wife (Beverly D'Angelo) in a furiously paced procedural that scores a pronounced advance for the curious beast known as the television movie (O'Connor).
HART'S WAR
2002. MGM. 2:05. R.
A young lieutenant and lawyer named Hart (Colin Farrell) lands in a German prison camp in World War II. Short on combat experience, he is no favorite of a colonel named McNamara (Bruce Willis), but when a black pilot (Terrence Howard) is accused of murder, Hart is assigned to defend him in a court-martial. Some obligatory big-budget brutality gets thrown into an unwieldy crunch of social melodrama and action movie, but "the contrasts combine to result in the oddest thing -- a movie that wants to be everything and adds up to nothing" (Elvis Mitchell).
HIGH CRIMES
2002. Fox. 1:55. PG-13
Ashley Judd is a San Francisco lawyer who watches in bewilderment as the F.B.I. drags off her husband (Jim Caviezel) and throws him into military prison. The Feds say he is really somebody else who massacred nine peasants in a Salvadoran village in 1988 and must now stand trial. Enter Charlie Grimes (Morgan Freeman), a broken-down military lawyer, for the defense. Mr. Freeman and Ms. Judd are fine, but Carl Franklin's film seems "as little interested in geopolitics as it is in human psychology" (Scott).
HOFFA
1992. Fox. 2:30. R.
Backed by a sly, revisionist screenplay by David Mamet and splashy direction by Danny DeVito, Jack Nicholson gives a bravura performance as the teamster leader James R. Hoffa. Mr. Mamet covers the Hoffa particulars from the union-organizing days to his racketeering connections and scraps with the young Robert F. Kennedy to what the film depicts as his gangland death. But this is a truncated, almost impressionistic account that makes no attempt to present a full picture of the man or pass judgment on his ruthless behavior. Mr. Mamet's impassive shrug forces viewers to make up their own minds, something that can be disorienting as well as rewarding. (Canby)
I AM SAM
2001. New Line. 2:10. PG-13
Mentally age 7 and with autistic tendencies, Sam (Sean Penn, left) gamely cares for his very bright little daughter, Lucy (Dakota Fanning), until she is about 6 and begins to run into problems at school. This attracts the child-welfare establishment, which wants to remove Lucy. Obliged to find a lawyer, Sam engages the very high-powered Rita Harrison (Michelle Pfieffer), who is shamed into taking on some pro bono work. Such are the bare bones of a very complex situation facing an achingly loving and desperately challenged parent. Mr. Penn burrows into his character in Jessie Nelson's film, but, "its sentimentality is so relentless and its narrative so predictable that the life is very nearly squeezed out of it." (Scott)
IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER
1993. MCA/Universal. 2:13. R.
Gerry Conlon (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a brattish low-life baiting the British in Belfast when he and his father are implicated in a pub bombing and wind up not only in the same prison but also, somewhat improbably, in the same cell. With main characters and plot so contained, attention turns to the struggle inside the jail and the growth of Conlon, who, in the face of various outrages, gradually gathers the strength to resist. In another extraordinary collaboration with Mr. Day-Lewis (the first being My Left Foot), the director Jim Sheridan shows the same ability to tell a story both matter-of-factly and metaphorically Maslin).
INHERIT THE WIND
1960 MGM Video. 2:08. No rating.
Featuring Spencer Tracy as a character based on Clarence Darrow, who was the attorney for John Scopes, a teacher in Dayton, Tenn., and Fredric March as a character based on William Jennings Bryan, who was in effect a special prosecutor for the state of Tennessee. This is a fictional version of the "Scopes Monkey Trial," which pitted Charles Darwin's theory of evolution against creationism. This wonderful Stanley Kramer film portrays the rival attorneys who have been friendly for years. The heat wave in the film can be seen as a metaphor for the intense pressure litigators face each time they prepare for trial. The film shows how they strategize, think on their feet and speak their convictions as persuasively as possible to the judge and jury.
JADE
1995. Paramount. 1:34. R.
A murder gets things off to a grisly start in William Friedkin's film about a lawyer (Chazz Palminteri), his wife (Linda Fiorentino), a psychologist who might also be a call girl named Jade, and an assistant district attorney (David Caruso), who is the wife's former boyfriend. With a screenplay by Joe Eszterhas (Basic Instinct, Showgirls), there are plenty of sex aids around, but a pedestrian mystery loads down a film that winds up with no more spark than a doused campfire (Maslin).
JAGGED EDGE
1995. Columbia Tri-Star. 1:49. R.
Pouring rain, flashing lightning, scary music: "Jagged Edge," concerns a glamorous lawyer who falls for her client, a newspaper publisher accused of murdering his wealthy wife. Did he or didn't he? It hardly helps that there's only one interesting answer to that question. The screenplay does what it can to throw up a smokescreen, but the audience will probably be well ahead of the story's final resolution. As the lawyer, Glenn Close is convincing if a trifle school mistressy, and she perks up considerably when the story finally gets around to its courtroom scenes. As her client, Jeff Bridges gives what may be the only ordinary performance of his career, although he's more than up to the material's negligible demands. Peter Coyote wears a steady sneer as Miss Close's courtroom opponent, and Robert Loggia, who does some of her legwork for her, uses the liveliest language around. Whodunit? (Maslin)
JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG
1961. MGM/UA. 3:09.
Spencer Tracy is the presiding judge at the Holocaust trial; Judy Garland and Montgomery Clift are death camp survivors, in Stanley Kramer's film which earned Maximilian Schell an Academy Award for his portrayal of a lawyer defending Nazis accused of war crimes. Judgment, which also starred Burt Lancaster, deftly explores the issue of ex-post-facto laws. The German officers are tried for "crimes" that did not exist in a legal sense at the time they were "committed." Although ex-post-facto laws are specifically prohibited by the Constitution, the U.S. government participated in their prosecution on German soil.
KRAMER VS. KRAMER
1979. Columbia Tri-Star. 1:45. PG
Robert Benton's film won the Oscar, as did Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep (supporting actress) as divorced parents in a custody battle for their son.
LAST DANCE
1996. Touchstone. 1:43. R.
In Bruce Beresford's film, a kind of distaff Dead Man Walking, Sharon Stone is Cindy Leggett, condemned to death for a double killing 12 years before. As a plain-looking death-row inmate (or as plain as it gets for Ms. Stone) striving for clemency, the actress at first comes across with startling ferocity. But then the story sinks into sentimental sludge as it brings on a young lawyer, pallidly played by Rob Morrow, to argue her cause and depicts jail life as if it were junior year at Vassar. With those handicaps Ms. Stone's stellar presence and surprisingly intense performance are all that stand between the audience and the void. (Maslin)
LEGALLY BLONDE
2001. MGM. 1:35. PG-13.
Not only blond but privileged and cheery to the point of derangement, Elle (Reese Witherspoon) rules the misty-pink Delta Nu sorority house at California University. Then she is dumped by a smarmy boyfriend (Matthew Davis) headed to Harvard Law School and in need of, as he puts it, a serious girlfriend more like Jackie than Marilyn. Well, darned if Elle isn't smart enough to nail that entrance exam and land in Harvard Yard herself. The director, Robert Luketic, is pretty smart, too, for "handing this overstuffed Louis Vuitton suitcase of a movie to Reese Witherspoon, a sharp, quick-witted Doris Day for our drab age of screen comedy" (Scott).
LIAR LIAR
1997. Universal. 1:27. PG-13
Thanks to Jim Carrey, the fairly mundane concept behind Tom Shadyac's film turns out more humorously than it might have -- hilariously, in fact. In accordance with the wish of his young son (Justin Cooper), a thoroughly unctuous lawyer named Fletcher Reede (Mr. Carrey) is unable to speak anything but the truth for 24 hours. So contrary is honesty to Fletcher's nature that the effort all but turns him inside out, creating ideal conditions for Mr. Carrey's rubbery antics. Telling the truth becomes so difficult, in fact that Fletcher is reduced to stuffing his mouth with paper and doing high kicks in an uproarious one-man free-for-all. (Maslin)
M
1931. Criterion. 1:50. No rating.
Fritz Lang's classic released 70 years ago and starring Peter Lorre in the haunting lead role. In M, police and criminals stalk the dark recesses of the streets of Berlin for a killer of little girls. Unfortunately for him, the underworld finds him first and the resulting "trial," conducted not in a courtroom but a warehouse, has an eerie, predetermined outcome. The concept of a proper trial is turned on its head, with mob leaders dispensing "justice."
MAN FOR ALL SEASONS, A
1966. Columbia Tristar. 2:00. No rating.
Adapted by Robert Bolt and Constance Willis from Bolt's hit stage play. The crux of the film is the staunchly Catholic Thomas More's refusal to acknowledge King Henry VIII (Robert Shaw)'s break from the church to divorce his first wife and marry Anne Boleyn (an unbilled Vanessa Redgrave). Sir Thomas willingly goes to the chopping block rather than sacrifice his ideals. Director Fred Zinnemann retains the play's verbosity without sacrificing the film's strong sense of visuals. The impeccably chosen cast includes Wendy Hiller as Sir Thomas' likably contentious wife Alice, John Hurt as the deceitful Richard Rich (More's put-downs of this despicable character provide some of the film's biggest laughs), Orson Welles as a dour Cardinal Woolsey, Leo McKern as the ambitious Thomas Cromwell, and Susannah York as More's daughter Margaret. The "Common Man," an important bridging-the-scenes character in the original play, is removed from the film version, which does just fine without him. A Man for All Seasons won six Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor, as well as seven British Film Academy awards. Review by Hal Erickson
MANHATTAN MELODRAMA
1934. MGM/UA. 1:33.
Clark Gable is Blackie Gallagher, a charming gambler who gallantly tries to help his friend the District Attorney (William Powell) become Governor by rubbing out somebody who knows too much. The D.A. marries Blackie's girlfriend (Myrna Loy). Blackie gets the chair. Such is life in Arthur Caesar's lively film, with a smooth performance by Gable, affable to the end, as a guy just trying to help a friend.
MURDER IN THE FIRST
1995. Warner. 2:03. R.
Marc Rocco's film tells the partly true story of Henri Young (Kevin Bacon), who in 1938 was locked away in solitary confinement in Alacatraz. Put back into the prison population more than three years later in a deranged state, he kills a man. Who is to blame: Henri, or the government for contributing to his mental condition? An idealistic young lawyer (Christian Slater) takes up Young's cause, but although he and his client display plenty of intensity, the story becomes predictable, with the actors bringing passionate conviction to material that seems pat (Maslin).
MUSIC BOX
1989. I.V.E. 2:06. PG-13.
Jessica Lange is Ann Talbot, a Chicago lawyer who defends her father against charges of atrocities allegedly committed as a member of the Hungarian secret police during World War II. Important questions are asked, but "nothing in Joe Eszterhas's overblown script or Costa-Gavras's simplistic direction can redeem the film's unremitting shallowness and mediocrity." (James)
MY COUSIN VINNY
1992. Fox. 1:59. R.
For his first case as a lawyer, Vinny Gambini (Joe Pesci) ventures from New York to Wahzoo, Ala., where he defends his cousin, on trial for murder. That's not automatically a setup for comedy, but there's little about Vinny, his gold chains, black leather and heroically in-your-face manner that wouldn't break up any situation. Wahzoo is also not quite ready for Mona Lisa Vito (Marisa Tomei), Vinny's flashy fiancee, down from Brooklyn and equally at home as a law clerk or auto mechanic. The film is directed with "a secure and sophisticated sense of what makes farce so delicious." (Canby)
NEW YORK STORIES
1989. Touchstone. 2:06. PG.
This anthology of three stories has in common a Manhattan locale. "Oedipus Wrecks," Woody Allen's priceless contribution, is about a successful lawyer (Mr. Allen) who still hasn't resolved his relationship with his mother. Martin Scorsese's "Life Lessons" is a stormily funny portrait of a successful painter (Nick Nolte). Sandwiched between is Francis Ford Coppola's painless "Life Without Zoe," about a poor little rich girl. Here is "a chance to see three major American directors working in what appears to be virtually a new theatrical form. Having scored two hits out of three, it's a near must-see." (Canby)
NIGHT AND THE CITY
1992. Fox. 1:44. R.
The lawyer Harry Fabian (Robert De Niro), a glad-handing, ambulance-chasing kind of guy, is about to explode with big plans and crises. With backfiring scams and bilked clients in Harry's hair day and night, there is little time for much else in Irwin Winkler's remake of the 1950 Jules Dassin film. "Don't be so desperate," advises a loan shark (Eli Wallach) when Harry is trying to raise money to be a fight promoter. Jessica Lange performs well as a worn love interest, and Jack Warden and Allen King make convincingly sleazy boxing types. But too often the plot points in Richard Price's screenplay get buried by windy monologues. Nevertheless, Mr. Winkler's film "is still a lively, gripping foray into the urban landscape. (Maslin)
NIGHT FALLS ON MANHATTAN
1997. Paramount. 1:54. R.
In Sidney Lumet's film, a young prosecutor, Sean Casey (Andy Garcia), is assigned to a case involving a police detective (Ian Holm) who also happens to be his father. Corruption is a fact of life as Sean goes up against both a crafty defense lawyer (Richard Dreyfuss) and a crowd of city politicians with the truth to hide and ambitions to protect. With his sure sense of place, Mr. Lumet creates a graphic and hard-boiled picture of a New York justice system in the hands of those on the make. The one problem is Mr. Garcia, who doesn't rise to the intense pitch required and too often remains a polite and neutral presence (Maslin).
NUTS
1987. Warner. 1:58. R.
Barbra Streisand is a call girl who refuses to plead insanity when accused of murdering a client.
OPEN DOORS
1989. Orion. 1:48. Italian with subtitles. R.
In Palermo, Sicily, in 1937, a distinguished judge (Gian Maria Volonte) absorbs himself with the intricacies of a particularly spectacular murder case. An office worker, dismissed from his job, has stabbed two fellow employees to death and then raped and murdered his wife. Details of the crimes are gradually revealed in the courtroom, but interest soon shifts from the case to the solemn elegance of the deliberations, the nobility of the judge and the deceptive orderliness that masks a chilling need for vengeance in Sicilian society. "The whole film, which has been directed with meticulous grace by Gianni Amelio, has an eerie, watchful tone" (Maslin).
OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY
1991. Warner. 1:42. R.
Somewhere in the hard heart of Larry the Liquidator (Danny DeVito) lies that smidgen of vulnerability that could weaken his resolve to buy up and dismember the good old New England Wire and Cable Company. To undo Larry and save the company, its starchy, pipe-puffing president (Gregory Peck) hires the snappily dressed lawyer Kate Sullivan (Penelope Ann Miller), whose well-modulated combination of come-ons and put-downs soon has Larry beside himself with lust. Norman Jewison's glossy adaptation of Jerry Sterner's biting Off Broadway play includes lively give and take on the merits of corporate takeovers, but the debate "is too genial to be hard-hitting"
PARAGRAPH 175
2000. New Yorker. 81 minutes. No rating
Using new and archival film, family photographs and narration by the actor Rupert Everett, Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman's documentary examines the Nazis' barbarous treatment of homosexuals from 1933 until the end of the war. The title refers to a section of the 1871 German penal code describing possible penalties for "an unnatural sex act." The film shows where Hitler took the law. "I am ashamed for humanity," says a survivor of the atrocities in a record that is "at once admirable and deeply unsettling," (Van Gelder)
PARIS TROUT
1991. Media. 1:38. R.
A small Georgia town is terrorized by a sadistic bully, Paris Trout (Dennis Hopper) who brutalizes and kills as if it were his God-given right. At one point he tries to drown his wife (Barbara Hershey) in a bathtub and then violates her with a liquor bottle. Hanna will eventually leave Paris but is persuaded to stay in town by Harry Seagraves (Ed Harris), Trout's gifted lawyer, who is worried about Paris's image being further damaged. When a steamy affair begins between Hanna and Harry, Paris ominously takes note. When she understandably leaves his household, further violence threatens. The lives of Harry, Hanna and Paris are suddenly inextricably, and fatally, intertwined. "Although portrayed with subtle touches of sympathy by the riveting Mr. Hopper, Paris is an unforgettably repugnant creation" (John O'Connor).
PELICAN BRIEF, THE
1993. Warner. 2:05. PG-13
Alan J. Pakula's film photogenically shadows John Grisham's best seller from slick beginning through limp ending, with Julia Roberts smiling dazzlingly from somewhere deep in the witness-protection program. Ms. Roberts is Darby Shaw, a bright pre-law student who follows her Nancy Drewish intuition along a paper trail to what she concludes must be the roots of the assassinations of two Supreme Court Justices. Darned if she isn't right, setting off violence that gets her mentor and lover (Sam Shepard) blown to bits and threatens to muss up Darby herself, a major no-no in a Julia Roberts movie. Fortunately, there's the assured, award-winning journalist Gray Grantham (Denzel Washington) to extract the heroine in a humdrum thriller best watched as a celebration of liquid brown eyes and serious star quality. (Maslin)
PHILADELPHIA
1993. Columbia Tri-Star. 2:05. PG-13.
When a prestigious Philadelphia law firm learns that one of its associates (Tom Hanks) has AIDS, it dismisses him, whereupon he hires a lawyer of his own (Denzel Washington) to pursue a suit against his employers. In controversial waters, the director Jonathan Demme seems his usual daring self, but then comes a big commercial film that blows hard about an issue while treating it with kid gloves. Mr. Hanks is superb, as is Mr. Washington as an anti-gay ambulance chaser, but they and the movie never graduate from basic Hollywood reflexes. While Philadelphia is impassioned too often, even at its most assertive, it works in safely predictable ways. (Maslin)
PRESUMED INNOCENT
1990. Warner. 2:27. R.
Harrison Ford plays a prosecutor who becomes the defendant in a murder case to which he is assigned. He is accused of murdering a beautiful fellow prosecutor with whom he recently had an adulterous affair. Director Alan J. Pakula's intense, gratifyingly thorough adaptation of Scott Turow's courtroom novel. Brian Dennehy, Bonnie Bedelia, Raul Julia and Greta Scacchi lend strong support to a film that at times is overwhelmed by its reserve and grimness. But Mr. Pakula makes restraint a great virtue, turning it into a slow-burning fuse. (Maslin)
PRIMAL FEAR
1996. Paramount. 2:10. R.
Sensing a media maelstrom, Martin Vail (Richard Gere), a publicity-hungry defense lawyer, instantly assigns himself to a spectacular murder case. Young Aaron Stampler (Edward Norton) stands accused in the gory stabbing death of an archbishop, and when apprehended he was wearing the blood-soaked clothing that all but proves it. But then Vail starts maneuvering in intense jailhouse and courtroom encounters and through various subplots, which give Gregory Hoblit's film a television style. If that means glossy storytelling and one-note insights into character it also means a good deal of surface charm. (Maslin)
RAINMAKER, THE
1997. 2:17. Pg-13.
John Grisham’s novel comes to the screen starring Matt Damon, Danny DeVito, Jon Voight, Claire Danes and Danny Glover. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola . Directing a courtroom tale from the most sure-fire popular novelist of the moment, a filmmaker with a taste for more eclectic material does a surprisingly straightforward and effective job. Drawing a parade of colorful performances from a steadily surprising cast, Mr. Coppola makes his best and sharpest film in years. Mr. Damon, playing the idealist who is the novelist's favorite breed of hero, brings dignity and quiet authority to the nice young man role, while Mr. DeVito makes a fine sidekick with a flair for ambulance chasing. Mr. Voight plays a slick, smug lawyer serving the corrupt interests of a big insurance company, and his new career as a villainous supporting actor remains a wicked delight (Maslin).
RED CORNER
1997. MGM. 2:02. PG-13.
An American lawyer goes to Beijing, makes love to a Chinese supermodel, finds her dead, is accused of murder, is assigned an equally beautiful defense lawyer, escapes through city streets and takes plenty of opportunity to express outrage at the totalitarian Government. Hey, it's a Richard Gere vehicle. Producing one Hollywood miracle after another, Mr. Gere and the director Jon Avnet crank up the movie melodrama, but they also succeed in giving the word conviction double meaning (Maslin).
REGARDING HENRY
1991. Paramount. 1:27. PG-13.
Shot in the head during a candy store holdup, Henry (Harrison Ford) wakes up and can't remember a thing. Out there in the haze is his wife, Sarah (Annette Bening), and his daughter (Mikki Allen), neither of them familiar. Also to be thought out during the rehabilitation is the fact that in his prior life as a lawyer, Henry was a very nasty customer. But here at least, thanks to the old redemption-as-result-of-accident routine, is the perfect chance to make amends. Mike Nichols' film is "cast with actors from the A list, dressed and designed like a fashion layout and written and directed with such skill that its essential banality is often disguised" (Canby).
RETURN OF MARTIN GUERRE, THE
1982. Fox Lorber. 2:03. No rating.
Perhaps the finest foreign film about justice is Daniel Vigne's film starring actor/workaholic Gerard Depardieu. Beautifully filmed and acted, this true story of intrigue in the Middle Ages is about a town's suspicion that the man who has returned from a war to claim his wife and inheritance is not the same man who left. The medieval notions of evidence and testimony are shockingly different from ours, given that the court must decide without the aid of such modern inventions as photography and medical record-keeping. In the end, everyone gets what he or she deserves - in a legal sense. But the good people end up punished while the wicked profit. At its heart, the film is about justice, fairness and greed - the same elements of many a modern legal dispute. (Try to find the subtitled version, which has better overall sound than the dubbed tape.)
REVERSAL OF FORTUNE
1990. Warner. 1:52. R.
Jeremy Irons is Claus von Bulow, the socialite convicted of trying to murder his wife, Sunny (Glenn Close). Barbet Schroeder's film picks up the case with the appeal, handled by flamboyant attorney, Alan M. Dershowitz (Ron Silver). Essentially a courtroom drama, the movie is also a vivid, witty picture of life among the very rich. Mr. Irons, who won an Oscar, gives a mannered, edgy performance in an "invigorating American comedy about class and, most important, the possibility of justice in the American criminal court system" (Canby).
RODNEY KING CASE: WHAT THE JURY SAW IN CALIFORNIA V. POWELL, THE
1992. MPI Home Video/Court TV. 1:56.
For those puzzled by the verdict in the trial of four Los Angeles police officers in the Rodney King case, this two-hour tape of key moments in the proceedings, broadcast last month on the Courtroom Television network and narrated by Fred Graham, sets out both sides and may afford some insight.
SCENES FROM A MALL
1991. Touchstone. PG-13.
Perhaps only Southern California could produce a couple like Nick (Woody Allen) and Deborah (Bette Midler). She's an exuberant, prominent psychiatrist; he's a neurotic lawyer who represents sports stars who endorse sneakers. In one afternoon together at a shopping mall they manage to run through personal confessions, life crises, a breakup and a reconciliation. Though awfully thin at times, Paul Mazursky's film is redeemed by the performances, which rescue a "peculiar but, finally, very engaging comedy" (Canby).
SEPARATE BUT EQUAL
1991. Republic. 3:13. PG.
Sidney Poitier is Thurgood Marshall in George Stevens Jr.'s television film, broadcast on ABC, about the Brown v. Board of Education case brought before the Supreme Court. Mr. Marshall, then counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, fought the case with quiet passion. Burt Lancaster is his tough but dignified opponent, and Richard Kiley is a superb Earl Warren, the new Chief Justice, helping to capture the moment "intelligently and movingly" (O'Connor).
SERIAL MOM
1994. HBO. 1:33. R.
The director John Waters doesn't get vulgar here, as he did in Pink Flamingos, but he's not so mannerly that he can't take a shot at all-American motherhood. Perky Beverly Sutphin (Kathleen Turner), the wife of a dentist (Sam Waterston) and mother of Chip and Misty, hangs in with good cheer. Problem is, when people (like a teacher critical of Chip) annoy Beverly, she kills them. Ms. Turner gets into the role with such sunny conviction that Beverly's murderous streak seems plausibly self-righteous, shaped by Mr. Waters's flair for capturing the excruciating details of suburban life. (James)
SLEEPERS
1996. Warner. 1:45. R.
Based on Lorenzo Carcaterra's fancifully cinematic book about his upbringing in Hell's Kitchen, Barry Levinson's film lands four boyhood pals in a reformatory where they are mistreated by the requisite brutal guard (Kevin Bacon). As grown-up hoods (Ron Eldard and Billy Crudup), a newspaper reporter (Jason Patric) and an assistant district attorney (Brad Pitt), the four scheme to get away with killing the guard. For color and heft there are the sage priest, Father Bobby (Robert De Niro), and a barfly lawyer (Dustin Hoffman), but despite its star power the movie settles the authenticity question by allowing not a whiff of real life into its universe. (Maslin)
SOLDIER'S STORY, A
1984. RCA/Columbia. 1:42. PG.
Norman Jewison directed this film based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play. The story takes place during World War II, at an Army base in Louisiana, where Vernon Waters, a black platoon sergeant, played by Adolph Caesar, has been shot to death with a .45 caliber automatic while returning drunk to the base one night. Much to the astonishment of not only the black troops in the platoon but the white officers on the base as well, a black captain - a lawyer, in fact, played by Howard E. Rollins Jr., - is dispatched from Washington in an effort to find the killer. Ku Klux Klan, suggest some of the troops. White officers, suggests a captain commanding Sergeant Waters's company. None of your business, suggests the Southern colonel who commands the base. "The worst thing you can do in this part of the country," he says, "is to pay too much attention to the death of a colored soldier under mysterious circumstances." (Van Gelder)
STAR CHAMBER
1983. CBS/Fox. 1:49. R.
Two undercover detectives, trailing a suspicious-looking man, find a clever way of obtaining his gun without a search warrant. The man, we know, has murdered several elderly women and stolen their welfare checks. When this man gets to court, the very decent and honorable-looking Judge Steven Hardin (Michael Douglas) knows this, too. But he also knows that the gun has been obtained in a questionable manner and that he cannot uphold the legality of the search. So Judge Hardin lets this murderer go free - and the judge's tormented conscience sets in motion the events that turn "The Star Chamber" into a tale of vigilante justice. Hal Holbrook, Yaphet Kotto, Sharon Gless, James B. Sikking co-star. (Maslin)
STORYVILLE
1992. Columbia Tri-Star. 1:52. R.
Take young Cray Fowler (James Spader), lawyer and scion of a nouveau riche New Orleans family, and run him for Congress. Put some rich oil leases up for grabs, add lust, a craggy old uncle (Jason Robards) and an overwrought matron (Piper Laurie) with a drinking problem. The director, Mark Frost, teamed with David Lynch on "Twin Peaks," and that show's influence is everywhere in "the kind of enjoyably overstuffed Deep South melodrama that Hollywood turned out in the 50's and 60's" (Canby).
SWEET HEREAFTER, THE
1998. High Fliers. 1:50. R.
Starring Ian Holm, Sarah Polley and Bruce Greenwood. Directed by Atom Egoyan. In the biggest and most wrenching film by this brilliantly analytical filmmaker, who adapted Russell Banks's novel, a terrible school bus accident in a neighborly Adirondack town becomes the basis of a many-faceted moral inquiry. In the aftermath of such calamity, how does life go on? With Mr. Holm expertly playing the ambulance-chasing lawyer who arrives to exploit the situation but stays to examine his own pain, this beautifully schematic film builds meticulously until it arrives at an extraordinary transcendence, with Sarah Polley as the quiet teen-age girl who becomes the wisest person in town. For all the suffering it describes, Mr. Egoyan's quiet triumph also carries the exhilaration of crystal-clear artistic vision (Maslin).
TIME TO KILL, A
1996. Warner. 2:30. R.
Not only does John Grisham write books that everybody reads, but he also gets to have the latest matinee idol portray a fictionalized stand-in for himself, in a film about a principled young Mississippi lawyer caught up in a spectacular murder case. Matthew McConaughey plays the lawyer, who defends a rural black factory worker (Samuel L. Jackson) charged with killing two men who raped and tried to murder his 10-year-old daughter. What makes this the most interesting of the Grisham novels on screen is the racial mix in the town where the trial will take place. Should the defendant plead insanity even though the crime is premeditated? While Joel Schumacher's film evades the troubling issues it raises, it has no trouble delivering sturdy, highly charged drama. (Maslin)
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
1962, MCA/Universal. 2:10. No rating.
Directed by Robert Mulligan, this drama won Gregory Peck an Oscar for his portrayal of a Southern lawyer who defends a black man accused of rape. Based on Harper Lee’s Pultizer Prize winning novel. He plays a white small-town attorney representing a black man accused of raping a white woman in the rural South in the '30s. As the lawyer stands up for what is right in the face of tremendous social pressure, his children watch and learn about life. And the trial plays as a fable for children, complete with good guys, bad guys and a moral.
PATHS OF GLORY
1957 MGM Video. 1:29 No rating.
President Charles de Gaulle of France had banned "Paths of Glory," an American classic about a World War I mutiny within a French Army unit, starring Kirk Douglas and directed by Stanley Kubrick. The drama takes place during World War I at the French front lines. Kirk Douglas defends soldiers who are tried as scapegoats when their unit refuses a crazed general's orders to make a suicidal charge at the enemy. Paths indicts the perversion of military justice as it portrays young men forced into fighting a senseless war run by old generals.
TRIAL AND ERROR
1997. NewLine. 1:38. PG-13.
Sent out West by a big Eastern law firm to settle a mail-fraud case quickly, the very buttoned-down Charles Tuttle (Jeff Daniels) is so incapacitated with a hangover that he is forced to let his best friend, Richard (Michael Richards), stand in for him in court. Not all is lost, however, as Charles finds an unlikely lover (Charlize Therron), Richard makes romantic inroads with the district attorney (Jessica Steen), and the English director Jonathan Lynn demonstrates a gently satirical eye for arch-Americana (Maslin).
TRIAL, THE
1963. Image Entertainment. 1:56 No rating.
Orson Welles directs Anthony Perkins, Jeanne Moreau and himself in the Franz Kafka story about a man who is arrested for a crime that is never defined.
TRUE BELIEVER
1989. RCA/Columbia. 1:43. R.
This thoroughly gripping film begins with a Chinatown gang murder and makes a powerful impression even before the opening credits are over. James Woods is here playing Eddie Dodd, a lawyer whose 60's idealism has given way to the business of defending drug dealers - now "a fierce and formidable leading man." Though narrow and even incomplete, the character of Eddie is a wonderful invention. Robert Downey Jr. and Margaret Colin offer strong supporting performances. Joseph Ruben gives lively and surprising direction to Wesley Strick's tightly knit screenplay. (Maslin)
TRUE COLORS
1991. Paramount. 1:51. R.
Herbert Ross's film traces the careers and personal double dealings of two young Washington lawyers (James Spader and John Cusack) who befriend each other in school but later tangle during games of greed and power in the nation's capital. Despite sharp performances by Mr. Spader as the straight shooter and Mr. Cusack as the ruthless bounder, the film never rises above the "heavy-handed and self-important" (Canby).
TWELVE ANGRY MEN
1957. MGM/UA . 1:35. No rating
Sidney Lumet's drama stars Lee J. Cobb and Henry Fonda as a holdout who finally sways a murder jury. The film examines how deliberations can expose a person's most private thoughts and beliefs for other jurors to question. To add to the drama, the director maintains cinematic tension by keeping the actors cooped up in one room during the entire film. Trial lawyers rarely visit jury rooms, and are fascinated by this intimate look at how jurors make decisions.
VERDICT, THE
1982. CBS/Fox. 2:09. R.
As a boozy lawyer, Paul Newman takes on a Catholic hospital in a malpractice suit. Although engrossing, from a lawyer's standpoint, Sidney Lumet's film is absurd. The case should have been thrown out of court as soon as the testimony of Newman's surprise witness was excluded. What's more, surprise witnesses often appear in film but are rarely seen in real life.
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WAR OF THE ROSES, THE
1989. 20th Century-Fox. 1:56. R.
Barbara and Oliver Rose (Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas) started out as young lovebirds, ready to scrimp and save and struggle their way toward a rosy future. But by the time that future arrived, bringing with it two kids, two pets, two cars and a big house with a lighted, glassed-in shoe closet, they hated each another like poison. Why did this happen? The Roses don't limit themselves to empty threats. Once their battle is under way, no holds are barred. ''The War of the Roses'' becomes a deliriously mean-spirited free-for-all in which nothing - not the pets, not the shoes, not the cars and certainly not the principals themselves - is sacred. This much should surely be said about the movie, it promises to take the gloves off, and it delivers. The film's outstanding nastiness, which is often diabolically funny...has something real and recognizable at its core. The Roses may be caricatures, but the rise and fall of their romance and the viciousness of their fighting will be elements that many viewers can understand. Director Danny DeVito narrates the story of the Roses as he plays Gavin D'Amato, Oliver's friend and lawyer. The film's tone may be slightly shaky at times, but when its humor works, it's very funny indeed. (Maslin)
WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION
1957 MGM 1:56. No rating.
Showcases the talents of mystery writer Agatha Christie and director Billy Wilder in bringing English court proceedings, quite different from those here, to life. The casting helps: Tyrone Power plays a man accused of murder, Marlene Dietrich is his wife and Charles Laughton his barrister.
WRONG MAN, THE.
1956 Warner Home Video. 1:45 No rating.
Henry Fonda plays a musician whose life disintegrates when he is falsely accused of murder in Alfred Hitchcock’ film. This is a compelling film, which details the tedium, fear and loneliness that the accused faces as he winds his way through the arrest, arraignment, interrogation, lineup and trial.
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