Comments above sum up many of the MAIN movements in this movie. Here are a few more...
A self-doubting, hard drinking lapsed Catholic remembers the ethics of his youth and fights for the severely brain damaged & disabled young woman. ***
How can alcoholic Frank Galvin come back enough to fight for his poor and silent client, the brain damaged young woman?
Lots of ethical questions, dilemmas could be discussed after viewing this movie. (Note: on TV the many F words are edited out.)
In addition to the major cast players, watch for great performances by Edward Binns (Bishop Brophy--late coming to realize he needs to do some ethical housecleaning...but still realizing this)
and the middleaged, brutally honest nurse (a bit tough, beat up by life some)--Maureen Rooney (played well by Julie Bavasso).
One hopes the Bishop starts listening regularly to the "little" people such as Nurse Maureen, who could have given the Bishop the real story ages ago...
...had she thought her opinion would have been wanted.
(After all, most Christian hospitals were started to "serve the weak" as in the story told by a Jewish man 2000 years ago. Thus, the Bishop must house clean to get back to the "Good Samaritan".)
(SPOILER below...
I thot of "The Verdict" and the barely seen other 12 heroes... the JURY. Despite the legal webs woven by both hostile judge and corrupt superlawyer Concannon, the jury does not let themselves stay enmeshed in such legal minutae. They look at the whole picture and return the just verdict.
I just wish the legal "gods' known as the US Supreme Court (and the demigods of Florida) could have had the view of the jury in THE VERDICT and looked at the whole picture instead of drowning in their own legal minutae, for instance some judges... (like the judge in The VERDICT) felt that they needed to protect their judicial turf or needed to "teach" upstarts who challenged their position---and thus did not deal with the CRITICAL issue---a severely brain damaged, yet healthy young woman who was being forcibly starved to death...I thought of THE VERDICT many times as Terri Schiavo took the couple weeks to slowly---die.
A self-doubting, hard drinking lapsed Catholic remembers the ethics of his youth and fights for the severely brain damaged & disabled young woman. ***
How can alcoholic Frank Galvin come back enough to fight for his poor and silent client, the brain damaged young woman?
Lots of ethical questions, dilemmas could be discussed after viewing this movie. (Note: on TV the many F words are edited out.)
In addition to the major cast players, watch for great performances by Edward Binns (Bishop Brophy--late coming to realize he needs to do some ethical housecleaning...but still realizing this)
and the middleaged, brutally honest nurse (a bit tough, beat up by life some)--Maureen Rooney (played well by Julie Bavasso).
One hopes the Bishop starts listening regularly to the "little" people such as Nurse Maureen, who could have given the Bishop the real story ages ago...
...had she thought her opinion would have been wanted.
(After all, most Christian hospitals were started to "serve the weak" as in the story told by a Jewish man 2000 years ago. Thus, the Bishop must house clean to get back to the "Good Samaritan".)
(SPOILER below...
I thot of "The Verdict" and the barely seen other 12 heroes... the JURY. Despite the legal webs woven by both hostile judge and corrupt superlawyer Concannon, the jury does not let themselves stay enmeshed in such legal minutae. They look at the whole picture and return the just verdict.
I just wish the legal "gods' known as the US Supreme Court (and the demigods of Florida) could have had the view of the jury in THE VERDICT and looked at the whole picture instead of drowning in their own legal minutae, for instance some judges... (like the judge in The VERDICT) felt that they needed to protect their judicial turf or needed to "teach" upstarts who challenged their position---and thus did not deal with the CRITICAL issue---a severely brain damaged, yet healthy young woman who was being forcibly starved to death...I thought of THE VERDICT many times as Terri Schiavo took the couple weeks to slowly---die.