Law & Order (TV Series) Rage (1995) User Reviews

The Smartest Guy Around

[bkoganbing · 8/10 · 24 July 2011]

This particular episode of Law And Order must have caught someone's attention because five years later Courtney B. Vance was cast in the spin off Criminal Intent as a good guy Assistant District Attorney, But here in Rage, Vance plays an up and coming young stockbroker who gets caught in a nasty scam by his boss and said boss winds up dead.

Vance has a great way with cool and controlled characters be they on either side of the law. It works when he played ADA Ron Carver in Criminal Intent and it works well here as Bud Greer a man who hit upon a really great scam and got caught at it. His attitude of smugness and assumption he's the smartest guy around make Jerry Orbach, Chris Noth and even S. Eptha Merkersen just want to smack him.

Vance's defense is that of black rage, tried most unsuccessfully by Colin Ferguson the perpetrator of the massacre on the Long Island Railroad.

This one is for fans of Courtney B. Vance.

A Complex Tale That Smartly Explores All Sides of The Issue

[Better_TV · 9/10 · 21 May 2018]

This is a fantastic episode that deals, as many great L&O episodes do, with race relations. Viewers who watch this episode focusing exclusively on Jack McCoy's arguments - which mostly correlate with the kind of conservative personal responsibility doctrine preached by his predecessor in the role, Ben Stone - are not paying attention to the multiple perspectives voiced by the other characters.

The script by Michael Chernuchin is fantastic and gives voice to pretty much all sides of the central plot, which involves a black stockbroker accused of killing his white superior at a powerful NY investment bank. It does, in fact, address the issue of institutional racism, and the final 30 seconds leave almost no doubt about the fact that the show wants you to keep asking questions; you're not meant to just take what Jack McCoy is selling hook, line, and sinker.

With all that said, the guest performances are all great: Courtney B. Vance rules as the complex Bud Greer, who is at the center of the story; he's represented at different points by Richard Libertini and then Wendell Pierce as a civil rights attorney who McCoy knows from his "equal protection arguments in front of the Supreme Court" which he notes as being "classic."

This episode shows how good L&O could be in its early years. It's one I'll happily rewatch in the future.

Narcissism, Color Irrelevant.

[rmax304823 · 7/10 · 28 October 2012]

I may get some of the terminology wrong here because, unlike the character played so admirably by Courtney Vance in this episode, I didn't graduate from Stanford, magna cum lauda, and then Harvard Business School, summa cum lauda. That may be why my bank account could crawl under a duck's belly, to borrow a trope.

A broker is found shot dead in his apartment, a murder staged to look like a suicide. Brisco and Logan track down the killer, Vance, a black man who lives in a crummy apartment, his millions of dollars of bonuses for performance notwithstanding.

It's a little complicated but Vance had made some "phantom trades" or something that made millions on the books but were stashed away because the traders had been fabricated by Vance. I hope I got that right. His boss found out about it and Vance shot him. Vance is in a position to hire the best defense team -- and he does. Their case? The boss and everybody else disliked Vance for his snobbery and Vance was driven to murder the man who was about to expose him because of "black rage." Viewers may recall that this was the excuse offered by the lawyers in the case of a very savvy and intelligent African-American who committed mass murder on a train somewhere in Queens.

I can't imagine that real trials consist of moral arguments back and forth between interrogators and witnesses, as happens in this episode. Yet, the issue is important enough. Does a life time of humiliation and coded insult qualify as an excuse for a final, violent hijacking by one's amygdala? Can you shoot somebody because you just can't take it anymore? How about if YOU'VE been treated with tolerance and acceptance but you just can't get the degradation of your ancestors out of your head? At what point does the violent act -- had it been the other way round -- become a "hate crime"? Unlike some episodes, this one doesn't pull any punches. Vance dislikes not just the whites he sees as so condescending, but the blacks who insult him for being what they see as a traitor to the race. He represent no one but himself. And he sticks smoothly and confidently with that egocentrism. Courtney B. Vance is the guy for the role too. Nobody does that unruffled poise better.

Strong rage

[TheLittleSongbird · 10/10 · 3 December 2020]

Anything race related is covered and depicted a lot, but that is in no way a bad thing. Racism, a major issue for decades, is a very brave and difficult topic, it also is a very important thing to address and explore and today it maybe should be addressed more with it being just as bad. As was what was said about "Progeny" for abortion, a lot of admiration would have been had for even tackling the subject regardless of the execution, it being a subject that has been tackled variably on both film and television.

"Rage" is an example of a courageous, well balanced and brilliantly executed on all fronts episode that hits hard. 'Law and Order' was no stranger to racism and anything race related, it had been done a few times before and continued to be a frequently tackled topic in the whole 'Law and Order' franchise. One of the finest examples being Season 4's outstanding "Profile" from the original 'Law and Order'. "Rage" is as great as that episode, although not quite as powerful it is as smart, insighful and brave and it is one of the best episodes of Season 5.

The production values as ever have slickness and grit, with an intimacy without being claustrophobic. The music has presence when it's used but does so without being intrusive, some of it is quite haunting too. The direction is also understated but the tension never slips, the second half being full of it.

Loved the script here in "Rage", one of the best written scripts of the season. It is very intelligently crafted and has intensity and edge while handling the topic sensitively too, really admired it too for seeing the subject from all angles and sides which is not easy to do for such a divisive and harrowing topic. The story is lean and pulls no punches without getting preachy or overwrought, with edge of the seat tension and raw emotional power. The proposed motive for the crime isn't ridiculous and sparked some interesting and thought-probing debate between me and a family member at the dinner table when talking about equality.

Character writing is spot on with genuinely tense conflict in the chemistry for the legal scenes. As is the acting, with Courtney B Vance showing a different side to him and doing so truly chillingly.

In conclusion, outstanding. 10/10

Made When Law and Order Was Smart

[bkkaz · 9/10 · 22 April 2023]

This is a frustrating episode, but in a good way. A Black man (Courtney B. Vance) is accused of murder, but as the investigation and trial wear on, we understand the great amount of alienation and, yes, rage he felt at how he was treated by his White peers at every level, a constant reminder that he was Black. He was subjected to any number of insults, hazing, abuses, and condemnation -- anything he achieved was because he was Black and given a handicap; anything he failed at was because he was Black and inferior.

You don't have to be Black to understand how being a minority of any color in a White society requires minorities to both endure humiliations and to give up something of themselves in order to fit in. Many do. As the episode points out, the choices are to either give up one's identity on some level to fit in or go back to the limited prospects for minorities that racism has produced. And all the while, those benefitting from racism with tell the minority they're the problem.

There are some good moments, such as how it's a group of White district attorneys and psychologists who are putting the Black man on trial, a reminder of how the system replicates itself without the participations even knowing or acknowledging.

When Sam the Eagle -- I thought he was supposed to be superliberal, but then, maybe they're the most guilty -- accuses a Black psychologist of being the true racist by inflaming opinions about race with her writings, it's enough to make any thinking person scream and pull their hair out. In the 1990s, this would have been the prevailing thought. It would be a little harder to get away with it today.

The episode heaps on the indignities, from Vance being mistaken for a bus boy to being told he should go back to the jungle to collect coconuts to one of the partners in the firm refusing to socialize with him in any way.

It's all enough to make your blood boil if you or anyone you know has gone through these sorts of experiences. And that's what makes it such a good episode. The drama is so tight and the ideas so well composed, unless you're the one benefiting from racism, you will be appalled.

But then the end is a cop out. That's the reason it loses a star. It essentially delegitimizes every possibility that racism is as profound a problem in American society as it is and resets everything so the audience can go back to its prejudices. That's a shame. A more ambiguous ending would have been thoughtful.

Cheaters Logic

[refinedsugar · 8/10 · 18 April 2024]

'Rage' is a top tier episode from the entire run of TV's Law & Order not because it's a murder case full of scandalous twists 'n turns, a boatload of suspects but because it's intelligent. Dealing with the issue of racism is apt to bring divided opinions, controversy if mishandled. Never once does this tale treat the subject as one note, sensational or approach offensive. It's level headed, calm and rational as opposed to emotional rhetoric brought on by the guilty who has more than a little streak of narcissism going on.

Wall Street exec Wallace Holbrook is found murdered in his upscale residence though the scene had been staged to look like a suicide. A look into his employees, a lot of talk about Bud Greer (Courtney B. Vance) particularly his success finds him as the only one with a criminal record. When he's caught in a lie by Det. Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) & Logan (Chris Noth) and more evidence comes to light, he launches a "black rage" defense in court for killing his mentor. Which also happens to be spearheaded by counsel Jerome Bryant (Wendell Pierce) who's made his name in racial policy making circles.

Another one of their tales "ripped from the headlines", but with much of the details, circumstances changed. The one thing that hasn't left the room is good 'ol common sense. Using race, a person's own misguided views as an excuse for killing someone is seen for the baloney is it. With much of the credit for this episode having to go to guest star Vance who has a knack for doing these calm & collected sorts who bubble just beneath the surface. Pierce portrays the type of legal, social soapbox figure that is all too real where one questions who most benefits most from his mixed messages, viewpoint.

Both the hunt for a suspect and the courtroom proceedings are pretty subdued. However this element benefits 'Rage' deeply by not dressing up the situation, people involved into some dime store gravitas. You get light sparring between Schiff (Steven Hill) & Kincaid (Jill Hennessy) that's a nice touch as the former is visibly uncomfortable with the issues in play. Plus there isn't a sole character in the main cast who likes Greer and McCoy (Sam Waterston) gets to verbally sum up why in plain English.