Premise: Alan Dershowitz tries a case of the husband of a wealthy socialite accused of two attempted murders that left her in a coma.
I was very, very wrong about what this movie was. Based on the poster, cast, and stuffy title, I expected some kind of Merchant/Ivory stuffy costume drama. Jeremy Irons carries himself like a guy with a lot more of those in his filmography. Glen Close was just coming off the surprisingly fun Dangerous Liaisons. I was fully not expecting a legal drama.
All in all, it was a pretty good courtroom drama. It does a great job cataloging how Alan Deshowitz built his case. Irons' Claus von Bulow is an engaging and inscrutable defendant. The case is left up to interpretation just the right amount. I definitely appreciated it more that many other legal dramas from that era (Nuts, The Accused, Presumed Innocent). I'm perhaps being more generous to it than I would normally because of the pleasant surprise of finding out it was a different kind of movie than I expected.
I'm going to push back on the Jeremy Irons' Best Actor win some. It sure felt more like a prominent supporting performance to me. In a way that makes it more impressive that he could push himself to lead and still win. It's not exactly like I needed any of the other nominees to win instead. Perhaps a Kevin Coster win for Lead Actor that year would've opened things up for a Scorsese Goodfellas Director win that year instead. It's a shame that Born on the Fourth of July couldn't have come a year later so Tom Cruise could've won an Oscar. I'm getting a little too deep in the weeds though. Irons' win isn't quite as head scratching as Rami Malek's for Bohemian Rhapsody, but it sure isn't one of the banner wins in Oscar history. Neither an undeniable performance or a win for an actor who has paid his dues.
Verdict: Weakly Recommend
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