What’s it about?

Do you like a "whodunit"? Do you sit before your video, pad in hand, jotting down the clues you are sure will lead you to the villain long before most of us duffers have given it up as hopeless?

Or are you the sharing type – insufferably bombarding your partner with every blind alley and wild goose chase? Yes, folks, this is the joy of the remote control. In the theatre you are the slave of the director – at home you can turn a snappy 90 minute movie into a three hour marathon!

If so, then this is the movie for you, as long as you can stick a sock in the mouth of any companion who might know the ending. Truly, you will want to know whodunit – and we’re not telling (don’t you just hate it when the critic just HAS to tell you whodunit).

This movie is about…okay, there is more going on in this movie than during a Senate debate on the Republic! You might think this is only about poor Rusty Sabich and his problems with the law. Wrong – it’s also about the morality of justice, and the morality of relationships, and the morality of the office place – yes, there’s a lot of moralising going on here, and in general, it is presented in a very entertaining way.

Harrison Ford is Rusty Sabich, an assistant District Attorney whose colleague, Carolyn Polhemus, is murdered. He is assigned the case, and in a wonderful twist of the tale, finds himself in very hot water. This is a movie where nothing is what it appears to be, so be careful before you hit that remote and too confidently finger the villain (only to quickly find yourself with egg on your face).

The pluses

Unlike so many legal thrillers reworked by accountants-cum-film bosses, this is a faithful adaptation of Scott Turow’s impressive best seller, which we’ve also reviewed.

What’s really good is the way the movie takes us to places that are not the usual haunts of a "whodunit" – these sometimes appear to side-track the main action (see below), but the story is marvellously flexible, and incorporates everything from political scheming to marriage breakdowns.

It is also wonderful the way the movie allows us to become acquainted with a person who is dead – and yet lives in the memory of many people involved in the case – in fact, this becomes an issue in itself (no more clues!).

The minuses

It’s all so complex that sometimes we lose sight of the main game – is Rusty innocent or guilty? It’s not quite "edge of your seat" stuff, but that’s probably because it was always intended to be more than a thriller.

Sometimes the movie seems almost claustrophobic in its intensity and devotion to realism. And as in so many movies, there just isn’t the room for all the complexities of the novel.

The legal point

What is circumstantial evidence? What do you do when the evidence piles up against you, but none of it comes from a living person? In this movie there’s fingerprints on a glass in the dead woman’s apartment; an affair with the victim; the defendant rang her on the night of her murder – can it be any worse?

Well, yes, it can! Someone could have seen the defendant commit the murder, or running away from the scene of the murder, or even somewhere near it.

In legal terms, circumstantial evidence refers to a fact on which a jury (or a judge alone) is asked to conclude another fact – for instance, if there are fingerprints on the murder weapon, the prosecution asks the jury to conclude that a particular person used that weapon, even though there was no witness to the event – that’s "circumstantial", because it relies on evidence of circumstance.

So, you might ask yourself, what can the defendant do to avoid circumstantial evidence? The lawyer can ask the judge to tell the jury that the defendant should be given every benefit of the doubt – is there any other evidence that is consistent with the defendant’s innocence – if so, the verdict should be not guilty?

In "Presumed Innocent", the lawyer for the defendant takes another route as well – he obscures every issue, casts doubt on every witness, points in every other direction. He can only do this because there are no witnesses to say that it really happened otherwise!

Who put it together?

The main force behind this movie is director Alan J. Pakula. He co-wrote the film, and the gritty realism is mainly his effort. Pakula has a number of first class credits to his name, including the thrilling (and chilling) "Klute" (1971), which starred Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland; "All The President’s Men" (1976), a masterful account of Watergate and the fall of Richard Nixon, which starred Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford; "Sophie’s Choice" (1982), a harrowing but luminous story which featured Meryl Streep’s best performance; the underrated "Paralax View" (1974), the Warren Beatty vehicle that highlighted the paranoid 70s; and "The Pelican Brief" (1993), the not so great movie of the Grisham novel. Pakula was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Picture as producer of "To Kill A Mockingbird"; as director of "All The President's Men"; and for Best Screenplay for "Sophie's Choice".

This movie was co- written (with Pakula) by Frank Pierson, a former Time magazine writer, latterly best known as the writer of the off-beat "Dog Day Afternoon" (1975), for which he won an Academy Award, and "Cool Hand Luke" (1967), the ultimate chain-gang movie.

Who’s who?

Harrison Ford
What can we say about Harrison Ford (Rusty Sabich in this movie)? He turned to carpentry before he got his first big break – believe it or not, he built a recording studio for Sergio Mendez (remember "Brazil ’66", the poor man’s Herb Alpert?). His life changed forever when a young director - heard of George Lucas? – gave him a role in a film that was apparently heading nowhere, "American Graffiti". That movie was a surprise blockbuster, and led Lucas to offer the over thirty Ford to play the part of Han Solo in "Star Wars", now the highest grossing movie of all time – enough said!!!

Talk about lucky, he then went into the Indiana Jones movies with Stephen Spielberg, where he really seemed at home in the role of the cavalier adventurer/archaeologist. He made his acting skill paramount in "Blade Runner" and Australian Peter Wier’s "Witness", for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. Lately he has acted with Brad Pitt in the thriller "Devil’s Own", and as the President of the U.S. in "Air Force One". It also looks like there will be another Indiana instalment.

Bonnie Bedelia
Sabich’s long suffering wife in this movie, is best known for her leading female role as Bruce Willis’s wife in the "Die Hard" series.

Greta Scacchi
Born in Italy, but educated and raised in Australia, Greta Scacchi is too often known and mentioned for her beauty, ignoring the fact that she is a talented and discerning actress. Check out the 1983 "Heat and Dust", where she excels in a small part (as she does in this movie); and the critically acclaimed "The Player", directed by the legendary Robert Altman.

The performances

Harrison Ford is perfect for this part, precisely because he plays it low key – he’s not dodging bullets (or lasers!), and although he’s made his name as Indiana Jones, he really excels in a more understated role. Here at Law in the Lounge we found it hard to tell when, and if, he was telling the truth – he’d be a good poker player (or a lawyer?). That’s not an easy thing to pull off – if we are unsure whether he’s guilty or not, he has to be believable as truthful or a liar.

Bonnie Bedelia does a great job as the wife who suffers her husband’s infidelity – it’s hard to know why she hasn’t gone further in her acting career . And the other female star, Australia’s Greta Scaachi, makes you believe she is exactly what she is meant to be, a woman very much in touch with her body and ready to use it to her best interests. You have to admire Scaachi – she has clearly avoided becoming a Hollywood vamp and taken her career in a more serious direction, when lucrative alternatives must have been on offer.

Our verdict

There’s nothing fancy here – the director is not forced to lure us into car chases and midnight rendezvous to enliven a flimsy plot. This is straightforward drama, told in an almost documentary style. Pakula wants us to take the story seriously – it’s a grimy, dark tale of lost hopes and betrayals, and a plot that twists and changes like the Mad Mouse.

This is Hitchcock territory – is an innocent man caught in a web of intrigue, or perhaps a political conspiracy? This was a complex novel, and it is to Pakula’s credit that he pulls it off with such style – don’t forget, this is the same director who made "Sophie’s Choice" from an equally difficult novel, similarly prone to flashbacks and tensions between the past and present.

This is not a rosy view of the legal system – or the lawyers who inhabit it. You won’t come away from this film with a secure feeling about your chances in the criminal jurisdiction. On the basis of this film, we’d advise you to run a mile in the opposite direction to a court! You’d also have to hope to hell that you don’t get caught in some political agenda, as is the case here, where County District Attorney Guardia has a lot more on his mind than a mere conviction. In fact, everyone has more in mind than Rusty’s best interests.

Don’t be concerned if you’re one of the millions that have read the excellent book by Scott Turow on which this film is based. The ending (and again, we’re not telling) is pretty much irrelevant – want matters is the journey, as is so often the case in a good movie.

Read this: The legal information contained above is intended to be general information about the law. It is not a substitute for legal and other professional advice. Lawscape Communications P/L does not accept responsibility for loss to any person, who either acts or does not act because of this information.

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