Rating  - True but easy
One more film about the corruption that is killing the NYPD and the District Attorney in that area. Then it is all a question of details. Gritty details. When you are working on a big business like the Colombian connection, you need informers and of course these have a price and that price is simple, total and absolute protection and impunity in their everyday criminal life. In this very particular case there seemed to be some kind of family business that made the informer nervous and he had to kill some kind of boyfriend of his daughter or something and then cover up his crime by having the police arrest and have an other man accused, as long as he was not a Caucasian nor someone from his own band or gang and that's how a Korean was dragged into prison and stayed there eight years. But the film is nothing so far. The point is how the defense attorney is going to get the truth out and his client out of the can. He has to force a couple of people into saying what has to be said and then he can trap the district attorney into revealing that the Korean was just the price to pay for the information about the Colombian connection. A pay off. Then the film is finished and we can go home and rest on our beds with no fear. The most rotten police force and prosecuting branch of justice are watching over us and assessing who they are going to drag down into their nets to pay off some criminal for the little information he has provided them with about some cosmic scandal or surrealistic plot. That's when we regret not to be able to hitchhike our way out of this galaxy to go under another sun on another planet to sun our bones in peace and security. But that is certainly not in our beautiful cities. Enjoy the film, the stunts are great though the stuntmen are a little bit passive.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
Rating - One of My Favorites Ever!
Keeping this short..."True Believer" is a film that my husband and I watch at least twice a year, and never get tired of! It's a superb combination of murder mystery, courtroom drama, and redemption story. Clever, quick-moving, superbly acted (with a dazzling performance from James Woods at the center), and full of delicious witty surprises, like the wonderful character of "Cecil (He likes it pronounced See-Sill) Skell", the much-needed witness who can re-open an old murder case, but who resides in a mental institution, and is convinced that the Telephone Company killed President Kennedy. A wonderful movie!
Rating - Contrived but excellent
James Woods is a top-notch lawyer, a former civil-rights watchdog now getting rich businessmen off on cocaine charges.
Then one day a Korean woman walks into his office and asks him to free her son, an innocent man who has spent 8 years in prison for a murder he did not commit.
Does he take the case?
You tell me.
It's all pretty boilerplate stuff, but Woods, Robert Downey, Jr and Kurtwood Smith elevate this tale, based on a true story, to art.
Rating - Great Legal Thriller!
This movie is by far among the greatest legal thrillers I've seen, not only because the writing and directing are superb, but James Woods' acting performance is nothing short of spectacular. The variations he projects in his character expressions--with so many subtle nuances--make him 100% believable and fetching as that character. And when his sense of right is piqued, he explodes in the most compelling, absorbing, credible way--one which just pulls you another foot deeper into the story, kind of the way quicksand pulls you in: you just can't get out, nor do you want to.
In this story, the Woods character is fighting not only for an innocent man's life, a prisoner doing time, but even more important, he's fighting for his own life--his sense of self-respect, honor, and decency, none of which he feels in his earlier law practice while defending and acquitting sleazeballs whom he knows should be in prison instead wrecking society with their crimes.
I watched this movie a second time the night after I watched it the first time and got even more out of it. Buy it and keep it. It's far batter than most of the John Grisham legal thriller movies.
No question about it: James Woods is one of the most underrated actors today. He performed almost equally as well in "Indightment" the McMartin child abuse case.
I've omitted talking about the plot because you can obtain that from many of the below reviewers.
Go to the Product Information page
Customer Reviews for Sony Pictures,0767859839,043396058491,9780767859837,B000056WR2, |
