Justice

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.

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.

Boy, I'm a person who loves every movie I see. Usually the worse the more I seem to like it, but this movie even I couldn't sit through. I think we made it about 30 minutes. Seeing that James Belushi and JoBeth Williams were in the film made me think that it would be a well-done movie. But from the 1/2 hour that I did see, all of the budget must have been spent getting those 2 stars because everyone else seemed as though they were made out of cardboard. The music reminded me of a Batman movie. Not a good film...nope.

(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!

Routine tv movie drama starring some actors who have done bigger and better things but seemed to be in this movie just for the paycheck.The movie "stars" James Belushi,JoBeth Williams,Charles Durning,and Tracey Needham in a plot that is totally unbelievable,filled with poor writing,and bad acting.Belushi,himself,is hardly in the film.It is true Tracey Needham looks great in the film,and one of the reasons for her healthy look is that she was pregnant while doing this movie.It is then hard to believe that a female DA in high heels(Needham) and an elderly heavyset cop(Durning) are working together and staying ahead and outsmarting the drug cartel that wants Needham's character killed.The real name of the film is Backlash.Horrendous is more like it.