And Justice for All

UPC: 014381705256

Studio: Image

MPAA Rating: R   Contains:[Adult Situations, Not For Children]

Summary: Norman Jewison's blackly satirical look at the American justice system has gained in stature as one of the more incisive social commentaries of its time. Al Pacino plays Arthur Kirkland, an incorruptible attorney who attempts to initiate reforms in the Maryland justice system. Kirkland is haunted by the fates of two past clients, one of whom committed suicide in jail; the other is still alive but is locked up on a trumped-up traffic violation. The ability of power and money to distort the pursuit of justice becomes all too clear as Kirkland finds out how deeply the rot has spread. He finally retaliates by representing a repulsive judge (John Forsythe) accused of rape. Pacino's and Forsythe's performances are intense and powerful. Many critics found the film biting and almost painful in its razor-sharp indictment of the justice system, while others declared the script too outrageous. ~ Don Kaye, Rovi

Category: Comedy Drama

Awards: Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama – null Best Actor – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Original Screenplay – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Original Screenplay – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama – Hollywood Foreign Press Association

Features: Includes Deleted Scenes

And Justice for All

Format: Blu-ray

Release Date: 04/05/2011

Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Theatre Wide-Screen

Audio: DHMA null

Runtime: 119 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) English

Subtitles: English,Spanish

Nathan Southern

Oftentimes, the most difficult features to approach are those whose brilliant scenes add up to less than they would if taken individually. Norman Jewison's satire ...And Justice for All hits this mark, to such an extreme that it almost evades value judgment. (It appears to have thoroughly baffled critics when it hit American cinemas in September of 1979 -- and several who were brave enough to approach it dismissed the entire enterprise as mediocre.) Such is an oversimplification at best. As a whole, Justice feels schizoid and erratic, veering violently and unpredictably from searing, bitter, white-hot, and heartbreaking social criticism (sans any visible traces of humor) to some of the most daft, pickled, and uproarious American black comedy of the past several decades. The film's primary weakness originates with Barry Levinson and Valerie Curtin's script, which never finds a tonal foothold -- it feels modally uncertain, shaky, and tenuous throughout. (That it received an Oscar nomination is inexplicable.) And yet, by some small miracle, Justice's strengths far outshine the flaws that exist on the script level. The Jewison-directed performances by Al Pacino, then-newcomer Christine Lahti, Jack Warden, a young Jeffrey Tambor, Craig T. Nelson, and especially John Forsythe (who surprised just about everybody with a brilliant vile turn away from his good-guy typecasting) score a bullseye. (Lahti and Pacino play off of each other with astonishing deftness -- their romantic/sexual patter is one of the film's great highlights). The preponderance of the film's satirical commentary on the American judicial system feels spot-on, as eerily predictive as Network was, three years prior, in its excoriation of television news. And one cannot help but admire Levinson and Curtin's ensemble of colorfully cracked characters -- from Pacino, the irascible counsel responsible for punching Forsythe's judge in the mouth, to Tambor's over-the-edge fellow attorney, who shaves his head and hurls discus with cafeteria plates in the courthouse hallways, to Warden's suicidally fetishistic judge, who brings Pacino's character within an inch of death in a helicopter ride. And though the details of the film's final scene will go unrevealed here, let it be said that it rewrote the rules of the cinematic "courtroom tirade" -- it remains one of those rare concluding sequences, like the courtroom scene in Martin Ritt's The Front, that have the viewer crying, laughing, and cheering simultaneously, in stunned admiration. ...And Justice for All may suffer a bit from the scriptwriters' gutsy attempt to blend tones, but it ultimately rises above its scattered weaknesses and stakes its claim as an essential (and overlooked) work of American cinema. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Alan North  Actor 
Joe Morton  Actor 
Michael Gorrin  Actor 
Thomas Quinn  Actor 
Connie Sawyer  Actor 
Jack Hollander  Actor 
Beverly Sanders  Actor 
Vasili Bogazianos  Actor 
Keith Andes  Actor 
Baxter Harris  Actor 
Charles Siebert  Actor 
Vincent Beck  Actor 
Robert Symonds  Actor 
Valerie Curtin  Screenwriter 
Dave Grusin  Composer (Music Score) 
Norman Jewison  Director 
Norman Jewison  Producer 
Barry Levinson  Screenwriter 
Patrick Palmer  Producer 
Joe Wizan  Executive Producer 
Joe Wizan  Producer 
Al Pacino  Actor 
Jack Warden  Actor 
John Forsythe  Actor 
Lee Strasberg  Actor 
Christine Lahti  Actor 
Jeffrey Tambor  Actor 
Sam Levene  Actor 
Robert Christian  Actor 
Thomas G. Waites  Actor 
Larry Bryggman  Actor 
Craig T. Nelson  Actor 
Dominic Chianese  Actor 
Victor Arnold  Actor 

Country: USA