A judge sees red

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Movie
German title A judge sees red
Original title The Star Chamber
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1983
length 109 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Peter Hyams
script Roderick Taylor ,
Peter Hyams
production Frank Yablans
music Michael Small
camera Richard N. Hannah
cut James Mitchell
occupation

The Star Chamber (AKA The Star Chamber ) is an American Justice - thriller from the year 1983 , the theme of idealism and vigilantism discussed. It was directed by Peter Hyams from a script by Roderick Taylor. The leading roles are played by Michael Douglas and Hal Holbrook .

action

Idealistic judge Hardin works on a criminal justice court in Los Angeles . He is frustrated as he repeatedly has to let suspected criminals run for procedural errors. So he had to z. B. reject a revolver, which had been used in four different murders, as evidence, because the police officers had taken it from the garbage of the suspect when he was in the dump of a garbage truck. Garbage is not only considered private property in the garbage can (which the police knew), but also in the dump and may not be searched without a judicial search warrant.

He is particularly concerned with one case: two men are charged with the rape and murder of a ten-year-old boy. The men had been stopped by two policemen at night while they were slowly driving down a street in their van, as a radio-requested check of the license plate had revealed that there were unpaid parking tickets. While checking the driver's papers, one of the officers believed he smelled marijuana, whereupon the second officer searched the car and found a bloody children's shoe that later served as evidence in the trial. In reality there was no marijuana in the car and the parking tickets had long been paid. So the policemen did not have the right to detain them and search the car. For this reason, Judge Hardin has to reject the evidence "bloody children's shoe" as inadmissible.

Hardin is desperate when the murdered boy's father tries to kill the two accused in the courtroom. However, the father misses and hits a police officer. Then he is sent to prison. During a visit, Hardin learns from him that another boy was murdered by sex criminals and that Hardin was partly responsible for this murder. The father committed suicide a short time later. Hardin speaks to his colleague, Senior Judge Caulfield, and tells him about his desperation. Caulfield tells him about a secret organization: a group of judges that seize cases like this to seek justice outside the law.

Judge Hardin attends a federal meeting presenting the alleged child murderer case. The secret group finds the two unanimously guilty and hires a killer to kill them. Shortly afterwards, Hardin learns that the two alleged murderers are innocent. The real perpetrators had stolen the car, transported the child's body in it and later parked the vehicle where it stood before the theft, so that the two accused neither noticed the temporary loss of their vehicle nor the bloody children's shoe forgotten in it.

Hardin informs the secret chamber of the mistake. But the members of the chamber refuse to whistle back the hit man. They explain to the horrified Hardin that they can only get in touch with the killer through an intermediary and that it is too late. Apart from that, the two innocent suspects would have deserved death either way because of their previous convictions. Hardin shouldn't act like that. In a similar manner, he is informed that wherever there is planing, chips would also fall.

Hardin makes it clear to the others that he cannot reconcile this with his moral standards. Caulfield makes it clear to him that the secret society will do everything possible to protect itself from prosecution. Hardin visits Detective Lowes in a pub to find out the whereabouts of those sentenced to death and to warn them. Hardin is attacked by the two of them and only escapes because the hit man disguised as a police officer appears and shoots them. Then he points his gun at Hardin - apparently the secret chamber has told him that Hardin must also be killed to get rid of a witness - but at the last second the killer is shot by Lowes and Hardin is rescued.

In the final scene you can see Detective Lowes and Hardin eavesdropping on a secret chamber meeting. This gives Lowes enough evidence to have its members arrested.

Reviews

  • The lexicon of international films writes: “Vigilante justice film à la 'A man sees red' on a higher level. The half-hearted ending does not remove the dubious tendency. Conventionally staged, weak acting. "
  • The Filmzentrale writes: “That could also be much worse. The film goes to great lengths to differentiate itself from the well-known vigilante films, for which the German distribution title reappoints it. After he had to release criminals, whose guilt seems beyond doubt, for formal legal reasons, Judge Hardin joins a secret criminal chamber to which judges with similar experiences have teamed up. [...] With the rejection of vigilante justice - after previous tortures of the upright judge's conscience - the film makes its ideology just bearable, but it also comes dangerously close to the Charles Bronson revenge fantasies: the criminals are after all more 'vermin' (dialogue point ) as a human being and in the case of the outrageously constructed example cases, he first stirs up vigorous indignation at liberal jurisprudence. No thought that this could also be a reaction to massive assaults in the criminal prosecution or that convictions at any price, not only in American courts, are likely to be the bigger problem of hard-to-tolerate acquittals. Nonetheless, the film persistently pretends to have something important to say about the problems that it has largely created itself, and the rather clumsy script gives away many possibilities that the story of the parallel justice system would have. The action sequences of the film are much more successful, for example the chase through a labyrinthine warehouse at the end. But what remains is the impression of an episode of a TV series that has been painstakingly brought to theatrical format - an impression that arises at the beginning, when the film cannot think of anything better than to use the news of a television announcer to develop the story. "
  • Film critic Janet Maslin of the New York Times is disappointed with the film. He has a very good ensemble, a good intention and is entertaining, but the construction of the plot is implausible. The action scene at the end is also superfluous.
  • The film critic Roger Ebert is also disappointed with this film. He praises the strong and exciting structure of the film. After the introduction, however, it evolves into a standard thriller with worn ingredients from an action film. But the film doesn't even follow the rules of a thriller when the detective shoots the killer at the end without actually being able to know whether his actions are legal.

Legal accuracy

At the beginning of the film, Hardin has to let go of criminals who had hidden a gun in a garbage truck. The film corresponded to the legal situation at the time of the film (1983). In the California v. Greenwood (1988) 486 US 35, the United States Supreme Court overturned this interpretation. The decision to search the vehicle of the two alleged killers was also correct. In the case of United States v. Leon (1984) 468 US 897, the United States Supreme Court modified this practice to allow evidence to be used if the police were in good faith.

background

  • The film is originally called The Star Chamber . The Star Chamber was a historic English court (1398–1641), which served as a supreme court. This court of justice was increasingly used by English kings to "legally" enforce political interests.
  • The film grossed $ 5.5 million in the United States.
  • The feature film Pact of Vengeance (2011) also has a vigilante organization, whose sense of justice gets out of hand, as a basic plot.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ A judge sees red. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  2. ^ [1] Karlheinz Oplustil's criticism in the Filmzentrale
  3. ↑ [2] Janet Maslins film criticism in The New York Times.
  4. ↑ [3] Roger Ebert's Critique in Suntimes.
  5. ↑ The Star Chamber (1983) on boxofficemojo.com , accessed on March 14, 2012 (English).