The Star Chamber

This thriller was shown at the 1983 Edinburgh Film Festival,back then it was not all Indy directors in checked shirts. I saw the film back then and always liked it but it is flawed but all films are. I give no plot details of course but an interest in American idealism will mean you enjoy the film more. Some good performances in this,a more modern film might have a less talented cast and more stars.

Amusingly described by one review I read here as "a vigilante movie as it might be envisioned by John Grisham", "The Star Chamber" is a good, solid, entertaining thriller. It misses its chances for greatness due to predictability and a lack of credibility, but while it's playing out, some people, such as this viewer, may not mind too much.

Michael Douglas, in one of his earliest star vehicles, plays Steven Hardin, a young judge who's frustrated by the legal system with which he has to work. Far too often criminal scum are able to escape just punishment due to legal technicalities and savvy defense attorneys. Stevens' cagey, witty mentor Benjamin Caulfield (a marvelous Hal Holbrook) eventually reveals to Steven the method he and some fellow judges have employed to deal with the situation: review old, particularly infuriating cases, make judgments, and pass sentence, utilizing the services of a hired gun.

This is certainly slick stuff, well made technically with efficient direction by Peter Hyams and it's at least smart enough to provoke some debate. For example, what would *you* do: let the 10 guilty men go free or let the one innocent man get executed? It includes some fairly exciting foot chases as well as one brief and decent car chase in a parking garage. The climactic sequence in the abandoned building is appropriately atmospheric. And Michael Smalls' music score is haunting and effective.

Douglas is good in the lead but it's the men in the major supporting parts that truly shine: besides Holbrook, Yaphet Kotto scores as a dedicated detective and James B. Sikking is touching as the father of a murdered child. Sharon Gless has little to do as Stevens' concerned wife. The cast contains an impressive Who's Who roster of character actors, including Joe Regalbuto ('Murphy Brown') and Don Calfa ("The Return of the Living Dead") as a pair of goofy creeps, as well as Jack Kehoe, Larry Hankin, Dick Anthony Williams, David Proval, Robin Gammell, Matthew Faison, Michael Ensign, Jason Bernard, and Robert Costanzo. David Faustino ('Married with Children') plays one of Douglas's kids and Douglas's own real-life mother Diana plays Caulfields' wife; Charles Hallahan ("The Thing", 'Hunter') appears uncredited as police officer Picker.

The movie does move along quite well, getting off to a good start but not concluding as strongly. Still, it's good entertainment for most of the time, and may have people talking about its themes after it's over.

Seven out of 10.

10 years after some rookie cops took it upon themselves to meet out justice in Magnum Force, a group of judges decide to do the same thing. They are deciding to punish those who use the law to get released on technicalities. Sound familiar? Maybe it's a good idea, as they look like they are going to remake this picture in a couple of years.

Michael Douglas (Oscar-winning producer of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Oscar-winning actor in Wall Street) is a judge who is fed up with having to release child murderers. Hal Holbrook (4-time Emmy winner) convinces him that they have a better way. Unfortunately something goes wrong. In ride Yaphet Kotto (Emmy-nominated) to the rescue. I like Kotto and he doesn't disappoint here.

I even got to see Sharon Gless, who I haven't seen since Cagney & Lacey, and James Sikking, who I recall from Hill Street Blues.

Great concept, but they did it better on Magnum Force.

(Credit IMDb) Disgusted with criminals escaping the judicial system via technicalities, an idealistic young judge investigates an alternative method for punishing the guilty.

I wouldn't call this one of Douglas's best movies, but it is fairly enjoyable for a thriller. Douglas hadn't attained the star power like he would in the upcoming years at this juncture. It is clearly evident that he would become a household name in the acting world. This is a good story about uncovering the corrupt system. It's nice to see a Judge that cares, wanting to do right. If anything else, this movie will uplift you. It's definitely worth a look

6.8/10

The 1983 film THE STAR CHAMBER posits a situation that must seem outlandish, but does go right to the root of our justice system. What if a secret cabal of judges were set up to pass their own verdicts on criminals who had gotten off on minor technicalities?

This is the problem facing Michael Douglas, who portrays an idealistic judge of the L.A. Superior Court who finds himself being forced to free criminals up on charges that include kidnapping and murder because the police bent the law a bit to get the evidence that would send "the bad guys" to jail for life or possibly to Death Row. Douglas later learns from his mentor (the always watchable Hal Holbrook) about a secret cabal of judges--a Star Chamber--that metes out its own brand of justice against those it feels have wrongly been set free. As a result, numerous criminals wind up getting executed. The further Douglas gets into the Star Chamber, however, the more he realizes that the cure these judges propose to rid society of criminal disease is far worse than the disease itself.

Though it is not always plausible, THE STAR CHAMBER is nevertheless compelling, with Douglas and Holbrook giving standout performances under the direction of Peter Hyams (OUTLAND; CAPRICORN ONE; 2010), who co-wrote the film's script with Roderick Taylor. Some might compare it to the 1973 Dirty Harry film MAGNUM FORCE (in which the cops take the law into their own hands), and many would say its theme of vigilante judges is drenched in right-wing gilt, but I don't think that's the case. This is one of those films that definitely makes you think; and while THE STAR CHAMBER may have been released twenty years ago, its themes still hold up in a world where, rightly or wrongly, people see the justice system as too slanted in favor of the criminals.