Release Date:
03/11/2008
There's nothing better than Al Pacino hamming it up as a lawyer who rails against corrupt judges and a broken legal system, which apparently hasn't changed much since this was released in 1979. This movie, set in Baltimore, swivels (sometimes very awkwardly) between comedy and drama as it follows a handful of cases ranging from mistaken identity to brutal rape. At times you don't know whether to get angry (the legal loopholes are maddening), laugh (a judge trying to blow his head off with a shotgun), or give up, but it's all worth it for Pacino's classic "out of order" speech at the end. Our only complaint with this DVD, aside from the extras being relatively lame, is it being treated as a marketing ploy for Pacino's upcoming movie 88 Minutes. (It includes a boring sneak peek and a free movie ticket we'll never use.) A movie of this stature deserves better than that.