Like Hill Street Blues a couple or three years later, ...And justice for all looks at the seedy underbelly of society. There may be a humanity to this society occupied by drag queens, nut cases and corruption but rest assured the good guys are few and far between.
This is the basic premise of this drama co-written by Barry Levinson and also set in has native Baltimore like many of his directorial efforts. Al Pacino's character, here named Kirkland (Pacino looks as much as a guy named Kirkland as John Forsythe, Pacino's co-star would look like a guy named DeNunzio). Anyway, it seems that Kirkland is cursed with caring too much about his clients. He has two sort of innocent clients, one who is already in jail and one who is facing it. Kirkland is also dating a woman, played by the lovely Christine Lahti, who investigates crooked or incompetent members of the legal profession. A sort of Internal Affairs for jurists. And we could go on from here describing the plot and it would fill about ten pages.
The trouble about this movie is that it's too busy. The focus had to be more about the more interesting plot about the judge accused of rape. Instead we are hit over the head with the tired underdog plot about one good man against a cruel world.
That is not to say that this isn't worth seeing. There are some wickedly funny spots, especially involving the relationship between Kirkland and his legal partner, played by Jeff Tambor who more or less expanded this character into his Judge Alan Wachtel for Hill Street Blues. The most hilarious of these moments comes at the very end of the film.
Altogether, not bad but for all persons involved not the best they have ever done.
This is the basic premise of this drama co-written by Barry Levinson and also set in has native Baltimore like many of his directorial efforts. Al Pacino's character, here named Kirkland (Pacino looks as much as a guy named Kirkland as John Forsythe, Pacino's co-star would look like a guy named DeNunzio). Anyway, it seems that Kirkland is cursed with caring too much about his clients. He has two sort of innocent clients, one who is already in jail and one who is facing it. Kirkland is also dating a woman, played by the lovely Christine Lahti, who investigates crooked or incompetent members of the legal profession. A sort of Internal Affairs for jurists. And we could go on from here describing the plot and it would fill about ten pages.
The trouble about this movie is that it's too busy. The focus had to be more about the more interesting plot about the judge accused of rape. Instead we are hit over the head with the tired underdog plot about one good man against a cruel world.
That is not to say that this isn't worth seeing. There are some wickedly funny spots, especially involving the relationship between Kirkland and his legal partner, played by Jeff Tambor who more or less expanded this character into his Judge Alan Wachtel for Hill Street Blues. The most hilarious of these moments comes at the very end of the film.
Altogether, not bad but for all persons involved not the best they have ever done.