 Mill Creek Entertainment continues displaying diversity and a love of modern cult classics as to the August 13, 2019 additions to the MCE "Retro VHS" Blu-ray series that evokes thoughts of the pre-digital days of Blockbuster. The subject du jour is the "retro" release of the 1989 James Woods/Robert Downey, Jr. legal thriller "True Believer." The MCE section of this site includes MANY posts on "retro" releases and numerous other items in the MCE catalog.
An inadvertently amusing aspect of "Believer" is that then former teen idol/current box-office king Downey is largely extraneous. He plays idealistic recent law-school grad, Roger Baron, who gives up fortune (and perhaps fame) at a white-shoes law firm to be a first-year associate for faded civil-rights attorney Eddie Dodd (Woods), who now (barely) pays his bills making Constitutional rights arguments to keep drug-dealers out of jail. Dodds noting that he charges cocaine dealers and represents pot dealers pro bono is one of a few funny moments in this drama. The pair makes a good low-key dynamic duo. Dodd is the battle-weary dark knight still fighting the good fight, and Baron being the naive boy wonder who is eager to learn from the master. Meanwhile, guest-of-the-state Shu Kai Kim is eight years into a stay at Sing Sing for a murder conviction when he is coerced into killing a fellow inmate as a gang initiation. This prompts the mother of Kim to frankly ask Dodd if he will defend her son. Her response when asked "why him?" is another amusing moment. This leads to Baron having one of his few significant scenes in "Believer;" he convinces Dodd to take the case. The rest of this story is that this litigation once again pits Dodd against prosecutor Robert Reynard, who has a tough entry in the loss column thanks to Dodd. Kurtwood Smith of "That '70s Show" playing tough foul-tempered Reynard is sure to prompt many viewers to mentally insert the name "Dumbass" at the end of most lines of Reynard. The intrigue comes ala Dodd uncovering increasingly compelling evidence that Kim is doing the time without having done the crime, A facially neo-Nazi attack on Dodd for defending Kim on the most recent murder charge fully thickens the plot. Our legal eagle (and his eaglet) soon learn how this is tied to the earlier crime; of course, these events also involve Reynard. The "Marvel"ous history of Downey makes it ironic (no pun intended) that truth, justice, and the American way ultimately prevail.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
|
RSS Feed