True Believer

1989 "Someone got away with murder...until now."
6.7| 1h45m| R| en| More Info
Released: 17 February 1989 Released
Producted By: Columbia Pictures
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

Eddie Dodd is a burnt out former civil rights lawyer who now specializes in defending drug dealers. Roger Baron, newly graduated from law school, has followed Eddie's great cases and now wants to learn at his feet. With Roger's idealistic prodding, Eddie reluctantly takes on a case of a young Korean man who, according to his mother, has been in jail for eight years for a murder he didn't commit.

Genre

Drama, Crime

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Director

Joseph Ruben

Production Companies

Columbia Pictures

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True Believer Audience Reviews

Alicia I love this movie so much
Cathardincu Surprisingly incoherent and boring
Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good
Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
cmm0855 Strength: James Woods is on his game and turns in a riveting performance. Weaknesses: Pretty much everything else. This movie is unimpressive to the 2011 viewer. Its plot convolutions are utterly predictable to anyone who's seen a single episode of Law and Order. For example, the falsely accused guy is actually innocent. The "revelation" at the end as to who's behind it all, who the bad guy actually is, is beyond obvious. Robert Downey Jr. is mostly wasted in the film and given little to do (although it is cheekily interesting that an actor formerly known for his drug problems plays a character disgusted by Woods' defense of guilty drug dealers). The soundtrack is gratingly dated, immediately recognizable as music from the 80s. The direction sucks, on par with some of the director's other hack work such as the Good Son. The plot is by the numbers and the film lacks a theme. For a movie involving a mentor/mentee dynamic, the chance for redemption of an idealist who has lost his way, the way the justice system treats racial minorities, and justice generally,the director leaves you with virtually no food for thought. Perhaps on a Friday evening in 1989 in a theater, this was a passable, or even good movie, but 20 years, it plays as a snooze-fest from which one squirms to get away from. A poor film, could have been better in the hands of a better director.Again, James Woods is in a different, better movie.
Michael Neumann It's reassuring to see James Woods in a film tailored to his own kinetic acting style, portraying a reckless liberal lawyer whose last line of defense against the Establishment is a cool, counter-culture pony tail and a client list loaded with drug offenders he can acquit on legal technicalities. Prompted by his (predictably) straight-laced protégé (Robert Downey, Jr., who off-screen at the time could have used the services of just such a lawyer), Woods reluctantly begins investigating an eight-year old Chinatown gangland assassination, putting his reputation, his integrity, and finally his life in jeopardy by attempting to clear the already convicted (but possibly innocent) defendant against a battery of airtight, incriminating evidence.The mystery itself is cleverly set up, the solution is both credible and genuinely surprising, and the supporting characters are sketched in with caustic wit and plenty of (generally off-gray) color. The result is a gritty and diverting thriller hampered only by the clichés of its late-1980s visual vocabulary, and by a lack of any greater ambition, which might have given the story more resonance. By all means enjoy it while it's on the screen, but don't expect the memory to linger too long afterward.
Mary Bryan Finding this film after 13 or 14 years makes me a True Believer in Google!Having forgotten both the names of this film, and the lead actor, I have remembered the character portrayals and plot lines for all this time, and have been scouring video stores and film catalogs for years, trying to recall some scrap of identifying info so I could rent it again, or even buy it. On an usually quiet day today, I just happened to stop at a Blockbuster two doors from a public library. When I received the usual "Sorry, can't help you without a title," from the Blockbuster clerk, I came over to the library computer and Advance-Googled "courtroom drama Asian suspect" entering years between 1980 and 1990, and VOILA!!!!! Guess where I'm going when I log off . . . Anyone into the courtroom drama genre should enjoy this film tremendously. After 15 years, I'm finally going to see it again! YAYYYYY!
culwin This was a good, but not great movie. If you like James Woods you will like this movie, if you don't you probably won't. Standard plot: Lawyers try to solve a murder and expose bad guys to save their client. How can you go wrong? Look for "Red" from "That 70's show". Downey & Woods would reunite 3 years later in "Chaplin". 7 1/2 out of 10