GREATEST COURTROOM MOVIES- PART 7

The cry for justice today is on another level today. There is that lady who was raped or that widower whose inheritance has been snatched. This particular gas company is doing pretty well but is polluting the river and the atmosphere. There could be this individual whose daughter was killed by a stray bullet during a police operation. Some cases also involve individuals whose work was plagiarized and are appealing to the law to have justice. To cut the long story short, there are just so many issues that give rise to the cry for justice. That’s the in real-life situations. Even in the films, the situations are just similar. So many people cry for justice. The systems in existence are corrupt and infringe on people's rights. Courtroom movies stand in the middle of the entertainment industry and portray actual cases of injustice. People have a penchant for watching these films because of their great riveting powers. Because of their unique grip, audiences stay on the screen for a long time. Here are seven examples of the greatest courtroom movies to watch.

The Client (1994)

Plot: The Client film was adapted from Grisham’s 1993 The Client novel. It follows a young boy who is traumatized due to witnessing the suicide of a lawyer. He also has critical information about a politician's sudden disappearance. Following these occurrences, he is the target of the Mafia. He opts to hire a lawyer to protect him from the Mafia. The politician who is supposedly missing is actually dead, unknown to many. The boy did not intend to have the vital information he has. However, he just stumbles across it and knows the dark secrets anyway. He must find some form of protection to safeguard him from the Mob and the FBI, who are both following him. The case goes on and leads to the death of one of the Mafia’s members. The young boy survives amidst all this.

Director: The Client film was directed by Joel Schumacher.

Cast: the movie’s principal cast includes Susan Sarandon (as Regina 'Reggie' Love), Tommy Lee Jones (as U.S. Attorney Roy 'Reverend Roy' Foltrigg), Brad Renfro (as Mark Sway), Mary-Louise Parker (as Dianne Sway), and David Speck (as Ricky Sway).

Awards and Nominations: The Client did well commercially. It received a total of four accolades. Sarandon received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. The BAFTA Awards awarded her the Best Actress in a Leading Role Award. Renfro also performed well in the movie. Because of her performance in the film, she won the YoungStar Awards and Young Artist Awards. These are the only accolades the film received.

Commercial Performance: the film received tremendous commercial after premiering. Its budget cost $45million, and the movie grossed $117.6million.

Trivia: besides the tremendous commercial success, the film also received wide critical acclaims from critics. Rotten Tomatoes conducted its review using 36critics and awarded the movie a 78% approval rating. The film also received a year-end listing in the 4^th Mack Bates, The Milwaukee Journal.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest (2009)

Plot: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest film features a girl who tries to prove herself innocent in the middle of scandals. It all starts when she tries to commit suicide. At the intensive care unit, she is fighting for her dear life. Outside the medication, corrupt systems await her to prey on her and take advantage of her vulnerability. They even plan on having the girl completely wiped out. The Swedish legal agency is at the center of all this and wants her dead. Besides the powerful authority, her brother is also awaiting her. He plans to kill the sister once she is out. Lisbeth stands firm and faces all these problems courageously. Her source of help is one journalist who has been working on the lady’s past. Now he has enough evidence and hopes to use this to defend Lisbeth in the court of law and help her prove her innocence.

Director: the movie was directed by Daniel Alfredson.

Cast: the movie’s principal cast included Noomi Rapace (as Lisbeth Salander), Tehilla Blad (as young Lisbeth Salander), Michael Nyqvist (as Mikael Blomkvist) Lena Endre (as Erika Berger, editor of Millennium), and Annika Hallin (as Annika Giannini, a lawyer and sister of Mikael Blomkvist).

Awards and Nominations: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest film has no awards and nominations. This is so despite its tremendous commercial success.

Commercial Performance: the film’s commercial performance was tremendous. It grossed $43.5 against its $5.3million budget.

Trivia: the film’s title has a Swedish origin from the word Luftslottet. This is a Swedish idiom with a literal meaning as ‘the air castle.’ Its figurative meaning denotes a pipe dream.

Compulsion (1959)

Plot: Compulsion movie was adapted from Meyer Levin’s 1956 Compulsion novel. In the novel, the focus is placed on a fictional account where Leopold and Loeb must face the court for murder trials. In the film, two young men kill a boy on his way to school. After this crime, they try to hide. However, one of the criminals inadvertently leaves his glasses at the scene of the crime. When the police find this, the two criminals are acquitted. One lawyer ends the case with a closing argument that salvages the two criminals from capital punishment. The story was a fictionalized account of two people, Leopold and Loeb. At the time of the film’s production, Leopold was serving his jail sentence while Loeb was long gone.

Director: the film’s direction was overseen by Richard Fleischer.

Cast: Compulsion movie’s cast included Orson Welles (as Jonathan Wilk), Diane Varsi (as Ruth Evans), Dean Stockwell (as Judd Steiner), and Bradford Dillman (as Artie Strauss).

Awards and Nominations: Dean Stockwell, Bradford Dillman, and Orson Welles won the Best Actor Award during the Cannes Film Festival. Richard Fleischer was nominated for the Best Film from Any Source Award by the BAFTA Awards.

Commercial Performance: the film did fairly well commercially. Its gross value was $1.8million. However, this only slightly surpassed the budget quotations that amounted to $1.3million.

Trivia: the records reveal various things about the Compulsion film. First, Orson Welles had directed the Touch of Evil film, which Europe received well but not America. When he learned about the production of the Compulsion film, he was unhappy for not being involved as the director. Secondly, Leopold approached the Illinois Supreme Court to block the production of the Compulsion film. Leopold could not provide enough evidence to convince the court that the film had defamed him in the court. This happened after Meyer Levin approached a decade before to write his story, to which h declined. Instead, he preferred the production of a memoir. The novel was written anyway and used to produce the film even at Leopold’s opposition.

The Crucible (1996)

Plot: author Miller wrote The Crucible film's screenplay from his 1953 The Crucible novel, whose writing was inspired by the Salem Witchcraft trials. The film follows a man who involves a group of local girls in the rite to wish his wife dead after breaking up with his young girlfriend. When the authority discovers the ritual, the wife is accused of witchcraft. The man tries to free the wife but his efforts rebounce, making things even worse.

Director: The Crucible film was directed by Nicholas Hytner.

Cast: the movie’s principal cast included Daniel Day-Lewis (as John Proctor), Winona Ryder (as Abigail Williams), Paul Scofield (as Judge Thomas Danforth), and Joan Allen (as Elizabeth Proctor).

Awards and Nominations: because of its great performance, the film attracted several acclaims.  Joan Allen and Authur Miller received two nominations from the 20/20 Awards and Academy Awards for the Best Supporting Actress and the Bets Screenplay Awards. Joan Allen also won the Critics Choice Award for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress. In addition, BAFTA Awards granted the Best Actor in a Supporting Role Award to Paul Scofield.

Commercial Performance: the film did not do well in the market. Its budget amounted to $25million, yet the movie grossed about $7,343,000. This was way below the budget.

Trivia: the film was also recognized in top lists by the American Film Institute. In 2008, the movie was included in the AFI's 10 Top 10: Nominated Courtroom Drama Films Lis.

Jagged Edge (1985)

Plot: the film portrays the struggles lawyers go through defending clients. A practicing lawyer receives a client who faces a capital murder accusation for killing the wife. Right from the onset, the lawyer cannot tell whether the client is innocent or is just being manipulative in the entire murder case. Unfortunately, this happens to the end, and the mystery does not unfold.

Director: Jagged Edge movie was directed by Richard Marquand.

Cast: the movie’s main cast includes Glenn Close (as Teddy Barnes), Jeff Bridges (as Jack Forrester), Peter Coyote (as Thomas Krasny), and Robert Loggia (as Sam Ransom).

Awards and Nominations: the records reveal only one nomination for Robert. He received this from the Academy Awards for the Best Performing Actor in the film.

Commercial Performance: Jagged Edge film did great in the commercial world. It reached a box office value of $40million against the $14.5million budgetary expenditure.

Trivia: in 2018, the film's production team announced that they are developing a remake for the Jagged Edge film, with Halle Berry in the starring role.

I Want to Live! (1958)

Plot: the film is based on the court trials of a con artist who tries to prove her innocence in a murder case. The bad girl committed murder, but she does everything within her reach to proclaim innocent as she is subjected to the justice system. One journalist is somewhat convinced that the lady is innocent and campaigns for her freedom. Nonetheless, she ends up on death row.

Director: Robert Wise oversaw the movie’s direction.

Cast: I Want to Live film’s cast was extensive and included Susan Hayward (as Barbara Graham0, Simon Oakland (as Edward S. ‘Ed’ Montgomery), Virginia Vincent (as Peg), and Theodore Bikel (as Carl G.G. Palmberg).

Awards and Nominations: Susan Hayward won the Best Actress Award from Academy Awards. The Academy Awards also nominated the film for several awards, including Best Screenplay – Based on Material from Another Medium for Don Mankiewicz and Nelson Gidding, Best Cinematography – Black-and-White for Lionel Lindon, Best Film Editing for William Hornbeck, and the Best Sound for Gordon E. Sawyer.

Commercial Performance: the fl did well in the market. Its box office value fell in the range of $3.5million to $5.6million. The budgetary expenditure amounted to $1.4million.

Trivia: the movie had one of the historical musical scores. In the movie, jazz themes in which Gerry Mulligan's Jazz Combo performed are featured. Later in 1958, two soundtrack albums featuring the movie’s musical score were released on the United Artists label.

I Am Sam (2001)

Plot: the film follows a father with mental challenges who tries his best to bring up his daughter. At seven years, the daughter’s intellectual abilities surpass her father’s. At this point, their relationship faces a threat of separation. A social worker notices the unconventional living arrangement between the father and her daughter and thinks the daughter should be placed in foster care.

Director: Jessie Nelson co-wrote, produced, and directed the film.

Cast: I Am Sam movie’s cast included Sean Penn (as Samuel John ‘Sam’ Dawson), Michelle Pfeiffer (as Rita Harrison Williams), and Dakota Fanning (as Lucy Diamond Dawson).

Awards and Nominations: I Am Sam film was a subject of great critical acclaim. Sean Penn received the Best Actor Award nominations from several organizations, including the Academy Awards and the Broadcast Film Critics Association. The Producers Guild of America awarded the Stanley Kramer Award to Jessie Nelson, Edward Zwick, Marshall Herskovitz, and Richard Solomon. The Satellite Awards nominated Sean Penn for the Best Actor Award. Dakota Fanning received the Satellite’s Special Achievement Award for Outstanding New Talent. 

Commercial Performance: the movie’s commercial performance was tremendous. It hit a box office value of $97.8million against its $22million budget.

Trivia: Despite the critical acclaims and the tremendous commercial success, some critics still the film was manipulative. Rotten Tomatoes use 145critics to review the movie, only to give it a 35% approval rating.

Conclusion

Many people would love to watch courtroom movies because of their great riveting power. In addition, these films possess a unique ability to keep an audience glued to the screen for a long time. This is especially true since they feature real-life situations. This article has shared seven films of the courtroom genre a person would enjoy watching.

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