…And Justice For All (Norman Jewison, 1979)

Lawd, what a tonal nightmare! This movie has no clue what it wants to be - a cynical look at the judicial process; a satire on same; a feel-good popcorn pic driven by American individualism (check out the hoark-inducing tagline on the poster). Pacino's lawyer-cum-Jesus is so grotesquely Correct that I expected the courtroom to stand on chairs yelling "O Captain! My Captain!" at the famous "You're out of order!" climax. And the very end is absolutely godawful, almost as bad as The Breakfast Club's - more proof the architects of this botch were baffled by their own creation. All that and Christine Lahti is wasted in her debut. Ugh! Grade: C.