ManiakJiggy This is How Movies Should Be Made

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Griff Lees Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

brubie-1 I know this is a late comment, but we in Australia are just viewing this unique American series. Firstly, I would like to thank Mr Lumet, for such a rarity in American TV. Normally what we, non-American audiences, are subject to what is the common formulised-to-the-max drama with each episode inevitably concluding with a win for the "good guys/gals". I simply am bored, no a little angry, with all these trite and over-glamourised TV dramas. I refuse to watch shows like Law and Order and other similar shows because they follow the same, thoughtless formulas which are normally so predictable, it really isn't worth my time while depicting a warped view of human societies.In Australia we are showing it on our national TV broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Commission, similar to the American Public Broadcasting System without the ads. This means, naturally, the audience is rather limited here which is, for me, a great shame. For if more non-Australians watched this insightful and mature drama where ordinary people are depicted as close as ordinary people are, they would get to know how flawed the most powerful country in human history is for those for lack the finance for the basic decencies of human needs, like sufficient nutrition, decent shelter, equal rights under the law, humane social welfare system, etc etc - and all this in a country which boasts the greatest number of billionaires on the planet. I cannot praise Alan Alder's acting enough though the rest of the cast deserve equal praise. But it is in the very conception and the great writing which has never faulted in its depiction of a courtroom environment that deserve the greatest praise.I would imagine that a television drama which gives equal depiction to story and character would not be easy to sell to American and thus overseas networks. Whatever, it makes for compelling and intelligent television - a rarity from American networks.It is such a shame that it doesn't have a wider audience.Thank you.

doreen90755 I miss this show. Every episode was like a feature film. Real quality work. It was treated poorly by the network that aired it. Word of mouth can go only so far. It should've been advertised more. Alan Arkin was so perfect in his role . I have added this to my journal of "The Graveyard of Great Shows"

prak78821 The commercial says: "After some nights, it gets to you".. yeah right..It didn't get to me and I am not watching it again. Can't believe A and E renewed this crap. It should not be allowed outside of the likes of the USA Network.This show eats dirt when compared to Law and Order. Where Law and Order is a tightly-written and expertly-edited show, this show is an unrealistic softcore soap opera that is filled with stereotypes and formulaic trivialties. Heck..it is even apparent in the theme music: Law and Order has the guitar-driven funky and energetic score and this one has the whiny trumpets and sax (Yuck).Just because they throw in a couple of court scenes with some legalistic dialogue doesn't make it a good serious show.So what if Sidney Lumet was behind it. Am I supposed to kneel down and like it anyway? Bah..I can just FEEL the inferiority complexes of the writers and the director from the way they do the characters. Alan Arkin trying to be the worldly "been there and done that" OLD judge, the nice BLACK woman with good advice for everybody, the main female character who is RICH girl falling in love with a lower class ITALIAN guy.Then there are the supporting hispanic characters who in one scene are SERIOUS lawyers but in the next scene become drug snorting sex-loving office SLUTS. (They obviously did this to provide the titillating sexual action without having to make the main characters be the "bad boy or bad girl".) Then there is the guy who is totally career-focussed but can still manage to be a sexual stud with a feminine side. Gosh I could go on and on..Nothing original. The plot is slow-moving, inconsistent and dull. The episodes meander all over the map without any continuity in character or story. They wasted like 10 minutes in one episode showing a bedroom scene. The gratuitous swearing is only added so that the bored audience will sit up and take notice. Gritty.. my a$$.The bottomline is that after watching this show, I don't come away feeling satisfied and happy. I also do not find the characters and story believable from my point of view. So, this show failed for me.Too bad.. back to the reruns of Law and Order...

coprogirl I like this gritty, well written drama. Good acting, realistic stories. I just have one complaint: The story line involving the brouhaha over judge Alan Arkin releasing the young kid who subsequently killed a young cop seemed a little disingenuous, since the kid was before the judge for jumping a turnstile in the subway. No mention of any violent crime. No one could have forseen that the kid would have committed a violent crime. Except for that one point, this looks like a terrific show. Hope to see it on A&E