Reversal of Fortune
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Movie Reviews of Reversal of Fortune
Movie Review: IRON'S AT HIS BEST
Summary: 5 Stars
After seeing all the video on the title character he seems bland. Iron's was able to put a sly sinister arc into his subject.Movie Review: Where's the White Hat?
Summary: 4 Stars
Could you enjoy a movie in which there was no "good guy" or similar person to root for? Have you ever wondered why Claus von Bulow was eventually cleared of charges after the sensational trial he had in the 1980's. Do you want to know who won the Best Actor Oscar for 1990? Well, if you can say yes to any of these questions, you should see "Reversal of Fortune". If you say no to all of the above you might want to check something else out instead.You may disagree with my assessment that there is no one to root for in this movie. However, consider the characters to choose from; a wealthy socialite who glides through life without any apparent concern for anyone but himself, a wealthy socialite who naps through life without any concern for anyone but herself, a brilliant law professor who believes that the Law is a tool to be manipulated by a skilled craftsman, the law professor's willing accomplices (i.e. students) who enjoy the challenge of finding loopholes to free the legally tried and convicted socialite. There aren't many other to choose from. There are the children we occasionally see but they don't seem to care so why should we. Maybe you might agree with the law professor, Alan Dershowitz (played excellently by Ron Silver) in his legal observations. This is, after all, the man who helped get O J Simpson off a double murder charge. The movie is about his efforts to overturn the attempted murder conviction of our hero(?!?) Claus von Bulow. Lawyer Dershowitz is first met in the midst of a furious attempt to save two brothers from the gas chamber. The brothers are black and have been convicted in the South. Obviously they are innocent as Dershowitz repeated reminds us. However, we come to see that "innocent" is a relative term to Alan Dershowitz. Thus even these two brothers are hard to cheer for.
There is a sort of tense excitement as the efforts of the professor and his students unfolds. However, what is at stake? The freedom of a man who very well may have been properly convicted. Is justice to be served in overturning a conviction if there is no real sense that the original conviction was wrong? In a moment of real potential excitement, we find Dershowitz faced with a real dilemma when a potential witness attempts to frame him (this guy is a real sleaze as well so no point in cheering for him). However, this potential excitement fizzles like a dud firecracker as we hear a TV news "sound bite" exonerating Dershowitz.
Sorry for all the negativity but I came away with the sense that this movie was made on the assumption that it's neat the way dedicated lawyers can help people. In fact, this movie is testimony that we need legal reforms in this country so that we can regain some respect for the legal processes that we have. This lack of respect that I have observed falls largely on the likes of people like Dershowitz who have shown that it is money, not race, that accounts for the disparity of judicial consistency in this country. In this case, there should be no doubt that the wealthy von Bulow paid a pretty penny the first time around only to be convicted. Why not fork over more money and try it again? Forgive me for not joining Dershowitz's already corrupted students as one of his cheerleaders. I give the movie a 4 star rating because the acting is superb (although I think that Jeremy Irons got his Oscar in a weak year). I also rated it that high because, unfortunately, I think this movie is going to be one I remember for quite a while.
Movie Review: This film delivers; fortunately...
Summary: 4 Stars
`Reversal of Fortune' is an extremely well constructed look into one of the most controversial `attempted murder' trials of the 80's; that of socialite Claus von Bulow and his rich wife Sunny, who lay in a coma.
The film is told through the narrative of Sunny herself, never force-feeding the audience a manipulated conclusion but laying out the facts and allowing us to draw our own; did he or didn't he? The film follows Claus' appeal and attempt at a reversal of fortune, hoping that Professor Alan Dershowitz (who penned the non-fiction book for which the film is based) can exonerate him of the criminal charges he is facing. Looking at things from Dershowitz perspective, as well as Sunny's and even Claus' allow the audience to get a complete and full picture, even if the loose ends are never fully tied up.
I have never been drawn to legal thrillers of this kind, but all the praise that went to Iron's Oscar winning performance drew me to see this movie. As far as films of this genre go, this is probably one of the finest. It thoroughly held my attention throughout, for the script was tightly woven and the mystery within the case is always manifest full force.
The performances also help to move the film along at a pace that holds onto the interest of the audience. Ron Silver is superb as the distressed and concerned Professor trying to do his job without compromising his conscience. Annabella Sciorra is also fantastic in a very small role as Sarah.
The real stars of the show though are Irons and Close. Glenn Close lingers in every scene as her narrative captivates the story and propels each scene forward. In fact I think that her narrative is the strongest aspect of the script. Jeremy Iron's though, has the juiciest role as the accused. His cold and matter-of-fact delivery is so bone chilling that he becomes unforgettable. This is a truly understated and subtle performance that is easy to pass over if you're not looking in the right places (that would be his eyes) for all the acting gymnastics his character is performing. Now, I'm not sure that he was deserving of Oscar (I actually thought that fellow nominees Robert De Niro and Kevin Costner were more deserving of the gold) but I must say that his performance should not go without praise, for he fearlessly allowed his characters flaws to overtake him.
In the end though, it is the script and pristine direction (Barbet Schroeder received a much deserved directing Oscar nomination) that elevate the film from a generic genre film into a near perfect thriller that will entertain even the most skeptical of critics. Like I said, I am not a fan of the genre in general, but this film is truly brilliant and proves to be at the top of its game on all fronts.
Movie Review: excellent
Summary: 4 Stars
There are so many reasons to love Reversal Of Fortune: The film is based on the book by Alan Dershowitz, who defended Klaus Von Bulow in the very early 1980s
Delineated here, Von Bulow is a reptile of a womenizer, accused of trying to kill his wife Sonny--Twice: Christmastimes of 1979 and 1980. Sonny lived for about twenty five years in a coma after 1980.
Von Bulow is old, cold money, and in the 1960s, had stayed for days in an apartment with his mother's corpse. He is icy, coy, and manipulative: he jokes about the alleged crime, and seems to enjoy making you guess his guilt or innocence.
This is a game, one Klaus seems to enjoy narrating in upper crust strokes "That is what an innocent man would say," Dershowitiz says. Klaus smirks. I know.
Dershowitz is a passionate attorney who only took the case because he felt the evidence chain was contaminated when Sonny's children had a private investigator take the case. He is liberal, mercurial, and obsessive about his work.
The contrast between the two--Von Bulow is played by Jeremy Irons and Dershowitz Ron Silver--is what makes the film work. Frankly, I have not seen such a fantastic pairing of contrasts since Sidney Portier and Rod Stieger in In the Heat of the Night. Iron's is great, but the normally slick Silver is brilliant at playing the fiery advocate.
It works as whodunit, and as character driven-drama: but the kicker that brings Reversal Of Fortune into the top tier is that it makes complex legal issues part of the story.
This film was made in 1990, when Law and Order was a new and relatively unknown show. People were naive about law then: we did not talk about crime labs, DNA, and arcane points of complex evidence as we do now--mainly due to Law and Order. It was not part of our culture.
Reversal Of Fortune actually makes the defenses investigation a character. It talks about the legal process and evidence in detail, treats you as smart but places the subjects in layman terms. It is not just the drama or the characters or the acting that make the movie work.
The synergy of all of it-especially given the times, is what makes Reversal of Fortune a great film. Watch it now and it could have been made today.
Movie Review: "My lady is not diabetic!"
Summary: 4 Stars
This might have been a very run-of-the-mill movie-of-the-week about drugs and attempted murder among the very wealthy, but Barbet Schroeder and Nicholas Kazan made this story of the circumstances surrounding the mysterious coma of cereal heiress Sunny von Bulow in 1979 almost a masterpiece. With its astonishingly complex narrative structure, its pitch-black humor, its superb performances and its detailings of utter misery and despair among the lives of America's wealthiest people, the film is reminiscent in some ways of CITIZEN KANE, and when the film is at its very best (particularly when Glenn Close and Jeremy Irons are onscreen as Sunny and Claus von Bulow), the comparisons to the latter sequences in the Welles film when Charlie Kane and Susan Alexander square off in misery in Kane's Florida mansion seem most apt. Irons won an Oscar for his exceptionally funny performance as the perverse Claus, but Close may deserve the true acting honors for making Sunny's gilded hell seem so real. There are also superb supporting performances, particularly from Uta Hagen as Sunny's devoted maid and Christine Baranski as Claus's sinister girlfriend. Only the frame plot involving Ron Silver as Claus's appeals attorney Alan Dershowitz seems weak--in part because since Dershowitz's own son was a producer, and Dershowitz himself had input into the script, his character seems unrealistically sanctified. (His character is treated basically as a paragon of both humanitarianism and liberalism.) But the weak stuff with Dershowtiz and his legal hotshots is easily put aside when you get to such moments of camp genius as Close's Sunny (in a cashmere twinset and sunglasses, while holding a cigarette) eating an enormous hot fudge sundae at the dinner table while her children look on in mute horror.