Post by Eddie Love on Jul 23, 2011 9:38:48 GMT -5
The low-rent American auteur Peter Hyams served up another over-heated helping of his loopy paranoia with the early 80s thriller THE STAR CHAMBER. Like a lot of his work it’s got some genuinely smart thrills in the mix of the overly straight faced, gamy plotting.
The picture plays like a lurid, Reagan era civics lesson. Criminals run rampant and our nation’s court seem to have revolving doors to better facilitate the ease with which scum get back out on the street, freed by some legalistic technicality. One L.A. judge -- and a really young one at that, Michael Douglas -- struggles with his conscience as he’s forced to side with the defendant’s counsel and drop charges against perps he knows are guilty. If only there was something he could do about these routine travesties of justice?
Well it turns out there is, and his judicial mentor (Hal Holbrook) introduces him to the titular body -- though they’re never referred as such and the name’s reference to English history is never explained. See, they’re a group of judges who meet regularly to doff their robes and pass summary judgment on the villains who escape justice in their courtrooms. They then send out a hitman to do the job our society won’t. Douglas joins the group, at first participating only passively. But, haunted by the details of a young boy killed by a kiddie-porn-snuff film ring (ugh!), Douglas takes his brief to the chamber. However, he soon discovers exculpatory evidence exonerating the deranged creeps whose murders he’s now set in motion. What’s a morally upright, if thoroughly compromised exemplar of justice to do?
As usual Hyams delivers some first-rate, kinetic action scenes. There’s an opening bit where two street cops chase down a hood that’s not dissimilar from Kathryn Bigelow’s epic foot chase a decade later in POINT BREAK. Later there’s an effective, if hysterical chase through an indoor parking lot. However, these scenes both involve secondary characters, when we do have a big set piece where Douglas confronts the wretched creeps whose lives he’s trying to save, the sequence isn’t nearly as strong. (Maybe because the less-than-menacing thugs are both miscast and come off as a white-bread version of Cheech & Chong.)
The look of this picture is also somewhat dated and over-wrought. The dimness of the courtroom scenes are almost laughable, you’d think Douglas would need a flashlight just to find the bench, and everything has that 80s look of dust-motes floating around seen dancing in the slats of light from venetian blinds. The same empty rooms when shown at night have the harshest, glaring lighting imaginable – they look like the pitchers mound at a night game. I guess this is meant to reflect the nature of the film’s conflict that we’ve lost our way and we can’t see justice clearly anymore…or…something. But the script doesn’t follow up on much of this effectively. When Douglas and Holbrook “debate” their actions the points are so simplistic it’s hard to believe these are officers of the court discussing lofty topics and not “John from South Bend, you’re next…” And elsewhere, Douglas the upstanding stickler for justice is seen discussing cases willy-nilly with interested parties outside the courtroom.
Douglas would go on to traffic routinely in pictures that touched hot-button issues of the day, and this one doesn’t connect as such, partly because it takes itself and the dilemma it’s portraying too seriously. It needs to be more irresponsibly provocative in the manner of a DIRTY HARRY and risk offense. In fact, if the picture were more incendiary it could have pissed of liberals for the first half and then ribbed the conservatives for the second. As it is, it kind of peters out with a climax that lacks urgency and doesn’t follow up on the overarching premise it set out with.
Still, the movie isn’t boring and offers some 80s grit and nice L.A. atmosphere. (Everybody smokes.) Hyams mainstay James B. Sikking has some good scenes as the father of a murdered boy who entreats Douglas for justice. (The underlying crimes here are really disturbing in nature, but thankfully nothing explicit is shown.) Holbrook is always good and this role offers a counterpart to his similar turn in MAGNUM FORCE. However, Yaphet Kotto turns up as the homicide cop who starts to piece things together and, let’s just say: a little Koto goes a long way. That’s to say, he only needs to show up for a few scenes to completely own this picture, and he does with his effortless command. He’s one of the giants. Perfect. Always.
STAR CHAMBER is a reasonably enjoyable melodrama that aims to provide more than it really offers. But it’s still worth a look.