MURDER IN THE FIRST
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1995 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Kevin Bacon, Christian Slater, Gary Oldman. Screenplay: Dan Gordon. Director: Marc Rocco.
Honestly, if I never see another courtroom scene in a movie, it will be too soon. As soon as I see a witness stand, a couple of guys in suits, and twelve good persons and true, I know I'm in for nothing less than a good old-fashioned lecture. It's Jello drama: ready instantly, but usually without much texture. MURDER IN THE FIRST has an inherently interesting story at its core, but its makers don't know what to do with it except dress it up in cliches and impress us with cinematographic gymnastics. It's not a bad film; it's just lazy, a classic example of a writer and director failing to make the most of an idea's potential.
MURDER IN THE FIRST is loosely based on the true story of Henri Young (Kevin Bacon) a petty criminal sentenced to the Federal prison at Alcatraz in the 1930s for stealing $5 from a post office. After a failed escape attempt, Henri is placed in solitary confinement for over three years, routinely beaten and tortured by the prison's associate warden Milton Glenn (Gary Oldman). When he is finally released from solitary, Henri attacks and kills the inmate who blew the whistle on the escape attempt. His case is assigned to rookie public defender James Stamphill (Christian Slater) because everyone believes that it's an open and shut case that no one could screw up. But Stamphill decides that Henri does have a defense: that the brutality Henri suffered in Alcatraz turned him into a killer that he wasn't when he entered.
MURDER IN THE FIRST opens with a risky but effective sequence which shows Henri's treatment while in the "dungeon." The sequence goes on for several minutes, but it is necessary considering how much Henri's state of mind comes into play. In fact, director Marc Rocco doesn't really go far enough. The torture sequences are too romanticized, filmed in slow-motion and backlit like an S&M version of FLASHDANCE, when it would have been more appropriate to play the scenes straight so that Henri's plight seemed more real. It is a lack of restraint typical of Rocco's direction, which looks like he put cinematographer Fred Murphy in a gyroscope and just set him spinning. You get the impression that Rocco thinks this story is basically about crane shots and funky angles.
What it should have been about, first and foremost, is the relationship between Henri and Stamphill, but again Rocco and screenwriter Dan Gordon don't take advantage of opportunities. As the film goes on, we learn about several things the two men have in common, particularly that both lost their parents at a young age, but these similarities aren't exploited. Instead, Rocco just indulges his camera, doing so to distraction during the first meeting between Henri and Stamphill where the camear swings around Henri's cell so noticeably that the actors get lost in the scene. It's too much a case of the tail wagging the dog, such that by the end of MURDER IN THE FIRST I didn't feel the friendship between these two men which should have created its greatest emotional impact.
That said, the scenes between Bacon and Slater are the best thing about MURDER IN THE FIRST. Though Bacon's performance is occasionally indulgent, coming off like Renfield with a Midwestern twang, he is mostly extremely affecting. It is by far the meatiest role he has had, and he is effective at maintaining the shred of humanity behind Henri's glassy stare. Slater stays right with him in the less showy role, very much the young go-getter in his early scenes who only gradually comes to know the person at the heart of his case. One scene in particular, in which Slater compares the punishment he received for stealing five dollars to Henri's, is a great piece of work because Rocco lets the inherent power of the moment work. But then, inevitably, he must return to the courtroom, and there things become trite and overblown again. Gary Oldman turns in another foaming-at-the-mouth performance as the sadistic (gee, there's a surprise) warden, while R. Lee Ermey as the judge is so similar to his role as the drill sergeant in FULL METAL JACKET I thought he was going to call Slater "Private Pyle." MURDER IN THE FIRST, which should have been most about a connection between two very different men, instead becomes a shouting match, and by trying to make his film Important with a capital "I," Marc Rocco instead makes it Mediocre with a capital "M."
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 days in the Hole: 5.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University Office of the General Counsel
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews