The Heart of Justice

Wow, "The Heart of Justice" has quite an impressively stellar cast for being such an inconspicuous and little-seen made-for-TV thriller from the early 90s. My personal reason for absolutely wanting to track it down was because it features the very last role of the greatest actor who ever lived - Vincent Price - but the rest of the list is dazzling as well. Dennis Hopper, Bradford Dillman, Jennifer Connelly, Eric Stoltz, Harris Yulin, William H. Macy, Joanna Miles, Kurt Fuller... Based on these names, one might think it must be a sort of masterpiece, but not quite. Although a fairly engaging and entertaining thriller/mystery while it lasts, "The Heart of Justice" isn't highly memorable.

The film does open intriguingly, with Vincent Price's magical voice as he's talking to Dennis Hopper over dinner. The latter depicts Austin Blair, a cocky pulp novelist enjoying the success and media attention of his newly published book. When he walks out of the club's restaurant, though, Blair is mercilessly gunned down in broad daylight by an assailant who immediately commits suicide as well. The paper he works for orders the very arrogant reporter David Leader to dive into the story and background of the murderer. He discovers the assailant, Elliot Burgess, comes from a rich and influential family, but struggled with paranoia and mental instability. Elliot read Blair's latest novel and became obsessed with the idea it was based on the lives and secrets of his family. Leader is supposed to write an extended story, but instead he becomes indulged with the murderer's sister Emma, ...and I can't blame him because she's the unearthly ravishing Jennifer Connelly!

The film is enjoyable and compelling to watch, thanks to the solid basic plot and strong performances for every tiniest supportive role, but even the dream cast can't prevent the story from becoming slightly dull and repetitive after a good hour. You will be curious regarding how it will end because, after all, the killer is already identified and dead. I must admit the denouement is unexpected and original, but not entirely satisfying.

Alright, one last homage to Vincent Price. His role is virtually meaningless here, and "The Heart of Justice" is hardly the film to end such a long and brilliant career with, but he still stands proudly and shines in his final role. Two short passages aren't much, but his speech about the rich club members is one of the highlights. I hope Eric Stoltz realizes what a great honor it is to have shared the last on-screen moments of this legendary man.

Meandering tale of a wealthy family embroiled in a murder scandal with hot shot reporter Stoltz becoming enamoured by the sultry, enigmatic daughter (Connelly) in his obsessive pursuit of landing the big scoop to feed his ambitions of fame and fortune.

Tries for a film noir feel, but doesn't make the grade wasting a whole lot of talent in the process. Most of star-billed Hopper's role is seen in flashbacks, whilst fellow veterans Price and Dillman have only relatively small contributions to a rather muddled mystery. I preferred the Stoltz-Connelly mind games that were maturing, alas they were overtaken midway by Mulroney's bizarre social handicap whose delusional behaviour becomes progressively more paranoid as the climax approaches.

But despite the potential, the movie is really no more than a feature-length episode of a Murder She Wrote or similar whodunit, with too much telegraphed and consequently, very few surprises to entertain any armchair sleuth who might be hoping for something more mysterious.

A writer is murdered out in the open, and the killer then offs himself. The question is what happened? The man he killed wrote something scandalous about his family. The man was ticked off by his latest book. He was so unhinged. His sister was shocked by his behavior. So when he stalked him, he caught the interest in a reporter. So the reporter got closer to his sister.

It's a interesting movie to watch. With an all-star cast to boot. It's like a puzzle game to solve, but it's also a game of cat and mouse. With the puzzle been solved, but the game of cat and mouse results with the mouse getting away.

Eric Stoltz, Jennifer Connelly, William H. Macy makes the movie good. It's a shame that it was Vincent Price's last film.

3 out of 5 stars.

Very much a TV movie with all the hallmarks to prove it. How a project like this got Dennis Hopper, Jennifer Connelly, Vincent Price & William H. Macy to appear in it is most peculiar. Only Connelly has any real screen time but the movie mostly follows Eric Stoltz as quite possibly one of the most annoyingly grating characters ever put to film. How anyone is meant to root for him the way he treats his girlfriend and colleagues makes no sense. A very forgettable 90s tv movie which should probably be left there.

A very good cast in a quite good TV movie directed by Bruno Barreto, "The Heart of Justice" presents Eric Stoltz as a popular reporter investigating the murder of a famous writer (Dennis Hopper) on the hands of a wealthy young man (Dermot Mulroney) who committed suicide after the fact. What could possibly link those two individuals?

Making his research and digging up some dirt, the reporter finds that the young man's sister (Jennifer Connelly) might be part of the issue which revolves on some family secrets.

Despite some cliches and with its one-dimensional characters of which is easily to predict their next moves, the movie manages to create a nice mystery, with several complex layers that instigates viewers though it's quite easy to figure the mystery related with the family with skeletons in the closet due to the lack of characters who could have an interest in killing the popular author.

The movie succeeds with good performances from practically everybody involved - specially with William H. Macy playing the humored mentor of Stoltz character, and there's also Vincent Price on his final film performance - but it's quite hard to relate with the cockiness coming from our heroic reporter, and I believe some viewers will probably hate him as the story progresses. Stoltz is pretty good, an actor you can depend on very easily but this character didn't suit him all that way because it's too heartless at some points. Yet he's the main reason why this movie becomes a point of curious interest since it talks about the power of media in creating stories, developing a case as things move on with twists and turns, and there's plenty of time to talk about the importance of ethics in journalism along with the investigation conducted by the reporter. Nostalgia hit really hard when his sort of like idealistic manners spoke volumes by saying that a journalist cannot print lies. In the current times of fake news and stuff, if only the media had those valid notions like he tries to infuse.

For a mystery story, the film works quite well but the surprises are quite superficial and easy to predict but it does not spoil any kind of enjoyment. It's pretty decent and well acted. 8/10.