Justice

This is a solid crime thriller TV movie with some good performances throughout. It plows along at quite a pace and throws a lot of story into the pot, but it just about holds it together. The production value is strong and it still looks good today almost 20 years later. Its a mix of the mafia, courtrooms and cops, and attempts to explore what suffifcient justice really means in society. Be warned though as despite star billing on the DVD cover Jim Belushi has a small role here, and is best described as a minor co-star.

My God what a terrible insult to the film world. The fact that I was very ill, sick off work and nothing else to watch but daytime television made it seem worse. My girlfriend bought this film, along with 3 others on one DVD for £2, so what did she expect for 50 pence a film.

I hate rape scenes in a film so watching this just made me feel sicker than I allready did. So this lawyer puts this thug behind bars and he takes it personal and seeks revenge. James Belushi attracted me to it, one of the other films on this DVD was Red Surf also staring George Clooney, but both these films use the big names to attract an audience and falsley lead them down a dark tunnel with no light at the end of it. At least Red Surf starred George Clooney, Belushi made a brief cameo role in this film and was given star credit. The scene where he falls in love with her and blah blah blah, is daft, it spoils a crap movie, if that's possible, the lead women is hot though.

(1998) Backlash THRILLER

Straight to rental and low budget, and seen it as "Backlash" and not as "Justice" about young female federal prosecutor succeed in putting away a drug Colombian drug cartel for life, only then she is on the run because of other relatives who're also connected and in the drug business. Interesting on the first half with some amusing dialogue, but goes to the absolute ridiculous and predictable mode where she ends up having an affair with an informant. So many far fetch things happen after, is when it really becomes ridiculous and off the wall. James Belushi also stars in this as the informant!

I guess I've become spoiled by watching mainly good movies in recent years, but this was by far the worst movie I have seen in a long, long time. It didn't even have the redeeming virtue of being entertainingly bad; it was just plain BAD. The acting was uniformly wooden, and the script was laughable. I was deluded into thinking that the film was worth seeing by the fact that James Belushi and JoBeth Williams were in it, and even Charles Durning is often good for a laugh if nothing else. God knows what they thought they were doing when they agreed to appear in this turkey.

Phew! I had to work hard to get my five or six brain cells to keep up with this one, a scatter-shot film in the genre of action/court drama/prison/gangster/revenge movie.

The film started off in Colombia where a DEA agent gets executed and micturated on, then jumps ahead eight months to a prison where James Belushi saves Henry Silva from getting shanked, then jumps ahead a year to a courtroom. I was beginning to think that by the time Charles Durning showed up, they'd all be in the future fighting on hoverboards (man, that would have been great).

The hugely complicated plot is this: Tracy Needham convicts a Colombian drug dealer who killed her partner, so he orders a hit and her partner gets wasted (as does his wife), so Charles Durning turns up as her protector and they go after the Colombian (who in turn are trying to kill them), Belushi is now working for Silva in the mafia (or is he?) and some Fed and her Marshall are covering things up for some reason I didn't catch. Got all that?

The film moves briskly enough and there's plenty of action and such like (except my disc had a glitch that missed out the climatic battle - cheers Cash Convertors!), but if you're drunk you might want to watch something with a simpler plot.

I give this film a high marking because Henry Silva is absolutely brilliant here. Just wait till you see the scene where, in one of his restaurants, he offers Colombian dealers a coffee and then charges them $2.50 for the pleasure (then gets really really angry when they don't want to pay) - worth watching for that scene alone.

It's alright. I must note, however, that I couldn't take my eyes off Charles Durning's frame. He's...err...a bit on the large side.