...And Justice for All. (1979)

I didn't enjoy watching ...And Justice for All. it made me angry, but it was supposed to, and that's a major part of what makes it good. A legal drama with comic and satirical elements its stars Al Pacino in an Oscar nominated performance as Arthur Kirkland, an idealistic lawyer forced to deafened a man he thinks could be guilty of rape. This central storyline I would have been curious to see done as a stand alone straight drama, and most likely this is how it would have been done by a more conventional director then Norman Jewison, however the film has a lot of side plots, some of them decidedly quirky, which add up to a portrait of a good man overwhelmed by a dysfunctional system he can not change. Solid supporting work from Jack Warden, John Forsythe, Lee Strasberg, Jeffrey Tambor and Christine Lahti in her film debut. Filmed in Baltimore from an Oscar nominated script by Valerie Curtin and Barry Levinson. Perhaps best remembered for an oft misquoted line about a system out of order. ***1/2