AND JUSTICE FOR ALL

(June 1979, U.S.)

So, let's talk about Al Pacino! This man has been my favorite actor since I was a kid. This man is responsible for some of the best films of the '70's. He has a true passion for his craft that I don't believe many of today's young (so-called) actors can claim. Oh, and by the way, the man can yell like you wouldn't believe! His on-screen performances seem to take on a whole new perspective when he starts to scream at the top of his lungs. Anyone remember, "Attica! Attica! Attica!" from DOG DAY AFTERNOON (1975)?

AND JUSTICE FOR ALL is a black comedy/courtroom drama that not only converys the obvious message about our legal system that we're alreay known for the longest time (that it SUCKS! It really, really SUCKS!), but it also turns the irony and insanity of the system into situations so outragous, you can't help but find them funny. In a system so corrupt, Pacino's character Arthur Kirkland appears to be the only lawyer in town with any sense of regard for truth and justice, and he ends up becoming more-or-less ostracized by the entire Baltimore legal community. By the end of the film, his partner who has previously had a complete nervous and violent breakdown is somehow permitted to return to the law, while Kirkland ends up being disbarred as a result of his moral integrity.

I have to say, in all honesty, despite Pacino's historical portrayals of Michael Corleone, Frank Serpico, Sonny Wortzik and Lt. Frank Slade, it is his outrageous performace in AND JUSTICE FOR ALL that has stuck with me above and beyond the other characters. His inevitable verbal courtroom explosion is a sequence I will never get tired of watching.

By the way, AND JUSTICE FOR ALL is the second R-rated film I ever saw. I was twelve years-old.

Favorite line or dialogue:

Arthur Kirkland: "The one thing that bothered me, the one thing that stayed in my mind and I couldn't get rid of it, that haunted me, was why. Why would she lie? What was her motive for lying? If my client is innocent, she lying. Why? Was it blackmail? No. Was it jealousy? No. Yesterday I found out why. She doesn't have a motive. You know why? Because she's not lying...and ladies and gentlemen of the jury...the prosecution is NOT gonna get that man today, no, because I'M GONNA GET 'EM! My client, the honorable Henry T. Flemming should go right to fucking jail! The son of a bitch is guilty! That man is guilty! That man there, that man is a slime! He is a slime! If he's allowed to go free then something really wrong is goin' on here!
Judge Rayford: "Mr. Kirkland, you are out of order!"
Arthur: "YOU'RE out of order! You're out of order! The whole trial is out of order! They're out of order! That man, that sick, crazy, depraved man, raped and beat that woman there, and he'd like to do it again! He told me so! It's a show! It's a show! Let's make a deal! Let's make a deal! Hey Frank, you wanna make a deal? I got an insane judge who likes to beat the shit outta women! Whaddy wanna gimmie Frank, three weeks probation?
Frank Bowers: "Dammit!"
Arthur: (to Judge Flemming) "You, you sonofabitch, you! You're supposed to stand for something! You're supposed to protect people! But instead you fuck and murder them! You killed McCullough! You killed him! Hold it! Hold it! I just completed my opening statement!"