Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Harrison Ford | ... | Rusty Sabich | |
Brian Dennehy | ... | Raymond Horgan | |
Raul Julia | ... | Sandy Stern | |
Bonnie Bedelia | ... | Barbara Sabich | |
Paul Winfield | ... | Judge Larren Lyttle | |
Greta Scacchi | ... | Carolyn Polhemus | |
John Spencer | ... | Detective Dan Lipranzer | |
Joe Grifasi | ... | Tommy Molto | |
Tom Mardirosian | ... | Nico Della Guardia | |
Anna Maria Horsford | ... | Eugenia | |
Sab Shimono | ... | 'Painless' Kumagai | |
Bradley Whitford | ... | Jamie Kemp | |
Christine Estabrook | ... | Lydia 'Mac' MacDougall | |
Michael Tolan | ... | Mr. Polhemus | |
Madison Arnold | ... | Sergeant Lionel Kenneally |
Rozat Sabich - Rusty to most that know him, even in formal circumstances - is the Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney for Kindle County, Illinois. His wife, Barbara Sabich, has been struggling with focus on completing her Ph.D. dissertation in Mathemetics - a thus far ten year process - she who nonetheless is applying for a college teaching position. They are generally in a loving, supportive marriage, Barbara who seems to have gotten over Rusty's infidelity with his colleague Carolyn Polhemus, an Assistant Prosecuting Attorney. Carolyn is ambitious, she who, in part, used Rusty to try and climb up the ladder. Barbara will still throw the issue of Carolyn in his face whenever there are problems between the two. Rusty and Carolyn's affair is unknown to others in their personal and professional circles. Rusty is handed the most personal case of his career when his boss and mentor, Chief Prosecuting Attorney Raymond Horgan, assigns him the case to discover who killed Carolyn, her dead body... Written by Huggo
This film is just another courtroom drama, where a prosecutor, a fairly ordinary and straightforward fellow, is accused of the brutal death of a colleague with whom, after all, he had had an affair.
The plot starts in a cold way and takes a while to catch our attention, there is really nothing that holds us and the film looks like it is going to suck. But after we enter the courtroom things really start to get interesting. We followed all the lawyers' arguments and the dialogue with the judge, the pace becomes more pleasant and faster and the twists and turns are taking place, endangering the life of that man who, after all, just wished that his wife had not heard of that stab in the marriage.
Harrison Ford is very good when he has to give life to ordinary men but to whom things happen. It is on him that much of the burden of the film falls, depending on his good performance. Beside him, we have a good and discreet Bonnie Bedelia and a sensual Greta Scacchi, with whom the actor gets good sexual chemistry. Raul Julia shone as a lawyer and Paul Winfield also does not do badly in the role of the judge.
Not being a very technical film, it is based mostly on the story it tells, and on the excellent performance of the actors. It may not be one of the court films that has aged better, as it is truly forgotten these days, but it deserves to be seen and appreciated for what it is.