Your enjoyment of this picture will depend entirely on your interest in the law and civil rights. Not your interest in courtroom dramas, but the law itself. Clarence Earl Gideon's story is important, but it's also very slow, dry and academic. Anyone expecting "Inherit the Wind" or "Reversal of Fortune" or even an episode of "Law and Order" will be disappointed. Henry Fonda engages in no melodramatics. He portrays Gideon as I'm sure he was, as a stoic, scarred man who kept his thoughts and emotions close. He's as methodical and forceful as a glacier. Fonda plays him brilliantly, but that doesn't make Gideon exciting to watch. I think this is another one of those movies that every high school student should see, but as a drama it just, well, isn't.
