I think William Friedkin was a dumb person who read a few books so people thought he was smart. This is about the capture and trial of a serial killer. We get scenes of the killer murdering one family (middle aged woman and her parents) then another (mother and small child) which have power to shock and Friedkin then proceeds to stack the deck in favour of the death penalty by showing the killer to be a complete psycho who giggles and smiles and kills three more guards to rub it in, and kills a kid, and calls the prosecutor at home. And the psychiatrists let him out and lie on the stand - I think Friedkin was going through a custody dispute at the time.
The court arguments and look at the legal system feel dumb, with Michael Biehn invoking the Nazis and lots of yelling. Did the author of the book on which this is based, a lawyer, have a say in those scenes?
Michael Biehn isn't much - he was effective in support movies but on his own he shouts. Deborah Van Valkeberg has nothing to do as his wife, except cry about their dead daughter - she could have been cut out of the film, and probably should have been.
None of it feels real. I will say that the movie had a compulsiveness to it - it's not boring like The Brinks Job or Deal of the Century. It's nutty Friedkin jumping up and down and yelling at clouds.
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