Incannerax What a waste of my time!!!

Tetrady not as good as all the hype

Helllins It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Keeley Coleman The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

inioi Martin Campbell's movies has become quite commercial since early 90's. But "Criminal Law" is a decent movie which possible please thrillers lovers.The film making is very effective, and Jerry Goldsmith's score along the fantastic photography of Phil Meheux creates a distressing atmosphere.About acting, i'm not usually amazed by celebrities performance (Gary Oldman ,Kevin Bacon) but some of the supporting cast. In this case, i have to highlight the Karen Young performance. She is a very interesting actress who had roles in " 9 1/2 weeks","Birdy" or "Maria 's Lovers".The plot is interesting and has good development, but the ending has a lack of credibility. Yet the movie deserves to be watched, specially for thriller's lovers.7/10

Robert J. Maxwell A woman police officer, Tess Harper, shoots a running man square through the head at a distance of fifty feet with a short-barreled revolver. Now, if you can believe that, you will get more out of this movie than I did.It's not an especially BAD movie, in the sense that at least it's not insulting. And in fact the story had real potential. Gary Oldman of the droopy face is a high-end Boston attorney hired by filthy rich Kevin Bacon, who has been accused of serial murders involving diapers stuffed in the victims' mouths. (Don't ask.) Oldman is a Harvard graduate and therefore brilliant. He saves Bacon's bacon, to general rejoicing.Without too much further ado, he finds that Bacon was guilty after all when the murders begin all over again and Bacon practically confesses. The problem is that there is no way to convict Bacon, and Oldman, out of an excess of chagrin, takes it upon himself to investigate the new cases and try to find inculpatory evidence.The acting is pretty good on everyone's part. The dialog has some startlingly effective lines. The performers look and speak as one would expect such characters to -- except that the murderer, Kevin Bacon, stares ghoulishly at every dramatic moment. If he blinked his eyes AT ALL during the movie, I must have been blinking myself.I don't know if that unblinking, murderous stare was Bacon's idea. I hope not. I suspect it was at the least encouraged by the director, Martin Campbell, because the fiend who is unable to nictitate is a cliché -- and the movie is full of clichés.That life-saving miraculous shot by Tess Harper is only the climactic example. One of the most overused stings has an innocent person creeping about in a dark room, searching for something he or, more often she, shouldn't be looking for. All is quiet. We tremble along with the intruder. Then a clash of dissonance in the score, and a hand reaches in from out of the frame and grabs the person's shoulder, or she bumps into a figure standing in the shadows, or she hears a noise and whirls her flashlight around to reveal the face of a threatening intruder, or a pair of arms wrap around her neck from behind. I counted at least four uses of this hoary device before I stopped looking for them.I'll mention just one other. A terrified man stumbles through a public park during a downpour, trips over some brush, rolls helplessly down the side of a hill, and comes to rest on a mutilated human body.Enough.It's too bad, because there are signs of intelligence glimmering through this hackneyed murk. Your Honor -- ladies and gentleman of the jury -- I direct your attention to the anecdote told by the dying librarian in the hospital, the little parable about Justice Brandeis and the shadow of the law. Corroborating evidence, which I now introduce as Exhibit Number Two, is provided by Kevin Bacon's fable, the one in the punt, of the man caught whipping God's dog. Nobody brings up Jeremy Bentham's utilitarianism versus Kant's categorical imperatives, although they might have, but thank God they didn't.A shame it was all thrown away in the service of titillating the audience through the use of commercial tricks.

Elswet As usual, I'm in the minority. This film was very compelling! It bears intrigue, suspense, and a high level of atmosphere! Gary Oldman (who is VERY young here) is a defense attorney in a crisis. His client, it seems, should have been convicted for the crime for which Oldman has successfully defended him. That's not a spoiler, by the way, the discovery is made just inside the first act.The rest of the film involves Oldman's character going through all he can in order to get the facts against his client. In the real world, Oldman's character would face being disbarred if his actions were discovered, while the DA and ADA who were involved with that little operation, would face, at the least, disciplinary action.Now, that's not to say that no defense attorney has ever committed the actions Oldman's character commits, however, the consequences are quite clear. Attorney/client privilege is sacred. Violations of that contractual agreement are severe, and should be; therefore, the suspension of belief required herein is a bit high, but since no one who will assist in prosecuting the defense attorney understands to what extent Oldman's character betrays his client, it isn't so great as to break that spell.All in all, I found the performances herein highly entertaining, and the atmospheric drama quite enjoyable. This is one I will watch again.It rates an 8.8/10 from...the Fiend :.

gridoon There are indications that the script has some interesting things to say about vigilante justice and law enforcement (among other subjects), but they're lost in a film that's much too long, too slow and too dark (when it's night, you can barely make out what's happening). The characters are very sketchy, and the plot has almost no surprises. Perhaps the film would've worked better if Oldman (who's over-the-top as the lawyer) and Bacon had switched roles. (**)