(Review originally written at 6 February 2008)
Courtroom movies are of course somewhat Sidney Lumet's specialty but who would had known that at the age of 82 he would had still had it in him to make such a great movie.
Normally courtroom movies aren't among the most exciting or fast going movies. This movie is however paced real good, mostly because of the reason that the movie is made such an entertaining one to watch. I mean if you have to classify this movie you would have to this movie a comedy. It's subtle but a comedy nonetheless. It's also true though that the movie sort of slows down and looses its freshness as it heads toward the ending.
It has a great and intriguing story based on the true story about the longest mafia trial in U.S. history. It's made all the more great and interesting by the character Jack DiNorscio. He is one great and at the same time also really entertaining character.
I've always said that Vin Diesel was a good actor who was just wasting his time and talent with playing in lots of action movies. Those sort of movies also got him a sort of bad reputation as an actor. I'm glad he also still does more 'serious' roles, such as in this movie, to show the world that he actually has got quite some acting talent. He is powerful as well as entertaining in his role. Lots of people also criticized him at advance for his role in this movie, before they had even seen this movie and said he looked ridicules with hair as well. I think that he did the one and only thing he could have done, just do his acting and surprise all those people who were criticizing him before, with his skills.
Shame though this movie never got the world wide release it deserved.
7/10
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