Review of ...And Justice for All (1979) by Greg D — 19 Jun 2005

Despite being obliged to do so, I love my mother for a number of justifiable, guilt free reasons. Like the fact that she bought me a case of Paulaner Hefe-Weizen today. She also makes my parental interaction follies incredibly comical, like the time she asked me in high school, "Greg, when did you water down the rum? It tastes like shit now," or when, in the early stages of my pot years, I found a marijuana leaf glued to a piece of matteboard in one of her art books and was treated to stories of her growing days. On this day after father's day (I love my dad, too) I just wanna say that my mom is cool, although I'll never be able to quit smoking if I continue living in this house.

On to other things. [i]And Justice for All[/i] is an incredibly strange film. Reading the back cover you'd never guess that there'd be some incredibly funny parts to the movie, such as the suicidally insane yet fair judge, or Al Pacino's plate throwing, can't-take-it-anymore partner. You also wouldn't guess that the soundtrack sounds like a white man's maliciously aborted attempt to imitate Parliament Funkadelic. The film, which chronicles the maddening hypocrisy and paradox involved in being a gritty, yet emotional, Italian defense lawyer, works as more than a run-of-the-mill courtroom drama precisely because of the dark humor sharply contrasting with the concise, if occasionally exaggerated tragedy. Horatio it ain't, working as a caricature of the madness of the inner-city legal system, emphasizing the grotesque and manically jumping from a joke to tear. I would've preferred, I don't know, more juries (it seems the fate of almost every defendant is decided solely on how big of a dick the judge is), but the movie works, although just barely. I also really liked the nods to [i]The Godfather[/i] parts 1 and 2, like the ethics committee grilling of Pacino ("Why do we need to use microphones if there's nobody else here?") to Lee Strasberg, who played Hyman Roth in [i]The Godfather[/i] in to play Pacino's father with Roth-like calm (albeit without his memory). My biggest problem was the fact that the film, which belongs to my girlfriend's mother, is not only in fullscreen but also poorly edited fullscreen (what do you want for $3.99?).