Review of ...And Justice for All (1979) by Stuart K — 28 Apr 2014

Directed by Norman Jewison, (In the Heat of the Night (1967), The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) and Fiddler on the Roof (1971)), this legal drama was written by then husband and wife writing team Valerie Curtin and Barry Levinson.

It does feel a bit dated now, (the music and fashions do look and sound suspect now), but it has some brilliant performances throughout and a very well written screenplay. In Baltimore, defence attorney Arthur Kirkland (Al Pacino) has had a fierce rivarly with Judge Henry T.

Fleming (John Forsythe), who refuses to reopen a case regarding Kirkland's client Jeff McCullaugh (Thomas G. Waites), who was sent to jail for a minor traffic offense. Kirkland's life is in disarray at the time, his grandfather Sam (Lee Strasberg) is going senile, while his legal partner Jay Porter (Jeffrey Tambor) goes mad after a client he got off murders someone.

Then, Kirkland is told that Fleming has been arrested for rape, and Fleming wants Kirkland to represent him. Kirkland is now stuck between a rock and a hard place, then he hears something shocking. Jewison gets the best out of his cast, and it does have some very offbeat characters, including a young Tambor, and Pacino turns in another powerhouse performance as a man stuck between doing whats right and what's legal.

It's a product of it's time, but it's also a good timepiece of the legal process in the late 1970's.