BEFORE: Paul Newman carries over - I meant to watch this one in my chain of legal/courtroom films in January, but I confused it with "Absence of Malice" and watched that one instead. Hey, accidents happen.
THE PLOT: A lawyer sees the chance to salvage his career and self-respect by taking a medical malpractice case to trial rather than settling.
AFTER: Some similarities to "The Color of Money" here, with Paul Newman playing an older character, one who likes to drink a bit too much, and one who's looking for redemption. Also, he gets hustled - in this case by a larger law firm representing the Catholic Church. The church runs the hospital in Boston where a woman was given the wrong anesthetic - and he's given the run of the case to get money for her family. This was made back in 1982, before those other charges got filed against grabby priests, so they still had some money to settle cases like this.
The problem is, Frank Galvin (Newman) decides to roll the dice in a trial, against his client's family's wishes - which goes against everything I learned on "Law & Order", or from sitting on a jury where the case was settled (turned out they were talking about settlement figures every time we jurors were out of the room). So no spoiler here, given the title of the film, he has to form the case of a lifetime and wait for...the verdict!
MY verdict is that except for a couple of heated motions and a few courtroom shockers, this one's pretty boring. I'm surprised I stayed awake.
Also starring Jack Warden (last seen in "Being There"), James Mason (last seen in "Lolita"), Charlotte Rampling (last seen in "Spy Game"), Milo O'Shea (last seen in "The Dream Team"), and a cameo from Lindsay Crouse (last seen in "Impostor").
RATING: 3 out of 10 motions to supress
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