Best COURT-ROOM MOVIES

Intriguing, great actings (mainly Marlene Dietrich, superb), sometimes with a very ironic and British sense of humour by Charles Laughton... and I can not tell you anything more...

Based first on a real story and later on a theater play, with many adaptations, this one offers enormous actings and the eternal fight among faith and reason. Liked much, much the resolution.

It was my first lawyers film, and it impacted me. Fabulous Nicholson as a presuntuous, iron-made militar. "I have breakfast all morning in front of a thousand people that want to kill me" (not exact, I saw it in Spanish). Also a good thinking about human life value and dignity.

Good interpretations of Matt Damon, Claire Danes and Danny de Vito. Excellent work of Coppola

Although I consider it is a 3 stars movie, I add an additional half a star by the brilliant performances and the strength of real facts.

Good point in the way Grisham (do not forget from where it comes from) tells you about the South, and also good the moral controversy. Although that, a too many times told story.

Probably my favorite end ever. You will say it (as the film) is not original, and that is even "primary". But we sometimes need powerful primary feelings on the screen, as well as in our lives...

Although I recognize its cinematographic value, and also that it brings to the front page issues which were revolutionary in that time -divorce, changes on gender roles, modern families-, it is a tough issue for me, so it´s a little hard movie. Sensitive hearts, be careful with it.

Very intelligent approach to the responsabilities after WWII, mainly because it does not try to judge the main leaders, but the men who were just obeying orders or making their jobs. Also some arguments have been explored frequently, others are quite new or expressed in an original way, and shows the complexitiy of the arguments. It makes a good job describing the political circumstances of the moment and how they affect to the judgment (and, as well, how the judgement affected Germans). Great actings from Burt Lancaster (specially) and Maximilian Schell, maybe some of the bests I have ever seen -by the way, Montgomery Clift was very good, I don´t remember, what of my Flixster friends told me she was an enormous fan of him?, I don´t remember, and I would like to know-. The main faiulure of the film is not combining in the correct proportion the judgement and extra-jugdgement stories, what would have improved the story (for example, although Marlene Dietrich makes a good role, they don´t make the most of her, as a enormous actress she is), and also a problem of rhytm -it has moments of climax and anticlimax, but doesn´t seem to arrive to a directed peak, and story apparently lacks of a rhytmical continuity. In any, very good work, mainly if you take under consideration the difficulty of the issue, that makes some fails be exonerated. The end, by the way, satisfies me as a conclusion, including all the different arguments you can expose against it.

Great! Incredible! Enormous Campanella! He takes a lawyers-thriller (Darín remembered to Al Pacino in his best times, and Campanella was greatly influenced by the 70s American thriller) and to a I-can-not-breathe-while-looking-it he adds wonderful touchs of poetry, tenderness and incisive humour. Although the rhytm is slow, you never get bored, as the script is incredible. Amazing sensation!

We have not seen a lot in cinema a reflect of the tragic consequences of slavery, and the interesting point about this movie is that it does without falling in too much sentimentalism or dark suffering excesses that will make the message get lost (although some scenes are really hard). Interesting characters and good cast around a court room movie with political interestest around. Also, a good success in reflecting the shock between African and European-American culture. Great physical acting of the African actors, in particular Hounsou. In the bad part, it becomes sometimes more idealistic than close to the real facts (in the speech of John Quincy Adams, I find too much references to the future), and, in that sense, it loses some credibility.