Without Turow's best seller I wonder if we would have Grisham et al. It restored the court room drama to its place as part of the mystery canon. The film changes very little from the book.
The moral of both film and book is that everyone has some degree of guilt: Rusty his affair, DA Horgan his dalliance with the victim and his run for cover when the ship hits the span, Rusty's wife, and even our honorable judge. Even Rusty's friendly detective friend is in reality suppressing evidence. Only Sandy Stern is beyond reproach, or so we think.
Ford does anguish well, but it is very difficult to believe that he would succumb to Ms. Polhemus in the first place. This is not the fault of the filmmaker but of the book. Raul Julia has the easy role which he acquits well. Bonnie Bedelia is a mystery, as she is supposed to be.
My original criticism of the story was that for a whodunit, as opposed to a procedural, we are left at the end with only one possible person to be the killer and so it is. In addition, there is one large hole in the plot; it would seem impossible that the police would not search Rusty's home for the murder weapon.
There is a great deal of resemblance between this tale and the Richard Gere/Diane Lane vehicle "Unfaithful".
The moral of both film and book is that everyone has some degree of guilt: Rusty his affair, DA Horgan his dalliance with the victim and his run for cover when the ship hits the span, Rusty's wife, and even our honorable judge. Even Rusty's friendly detective friend is in reality suppressing evidence. Only Sandy Stern is beyond reproach, or so we think.
Ford does anguish well, but it is very difficult to believe that he would succumb to Ms. Polhemus in the first place. This is not the fault of the filmmaker but of the book. Raul Julia has the easy role which he acquits well. Bonnie Bedelia is a mystery, as she is supposed to be.
My original criticism of the story was that for a whodunit, as opposed to a procedural, we are left at the end with only one possible person to be the killer and so it is. In addition, there is one large hole in the plot; it would seem impossible that the police would not search Rusty's home for the murder weapon.
There is a great deal of resemblance between this tale and the Richard Gere/Diane Lane vehicle "Unfaithful".