O Coração da Justiça

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.

1992's "The Heart of Justice" was a prestigious TV movie from Turner Network Television, boasting a solid cast of veterans in mostly brief appearances, led in the opening scene by Dennis Hopper and Vincent Price, two longtime friends enjoying a last luncheon together in their exclusive club before Hopper's Austin Blair is unceremoniously shot to death once he leaves. The assassin is Elliot Burgess (Dermot Mulroney), an introverted violinist who has formed an unusually close bond with gorgeous sister Emma (Jennifer Connelly), one that dirtbag Blair seemingly knows about and has revealed all the skeletons in the Burgess family closet in his latest work of gossip fiction. Hot shot reporter David Leader (Eric Stoltz) is given the green light to compose a series of articles designed to leave the other newspapers envious, using his contacts to dig further into the background of the Burgess patriarch (Bradford Dillman), who always wanted his pampered son to follow in his law practice footsteps. Only after making contact with Emma does David receive a number of cassette tapes narrated by the obviously deranged killer, all spelling out the motives behind the murder, drawn out over several weeks in a coldly calculated style. It doesn't really qualify as a mystery since the crime takes place barely two minutes into the picture (even before the credits roll!), and because the protagonist is a self serving jerk deserving of less pity than even the perpetrator, viewers are left with an exercise of style over substance, less and less involving as the picture drags on toward its painfully obvious conclusion. What one is left with are the little character vignettes, in particular the final screen role for 80 year old Vincent Price (shooting in October 1991), whose Reggie Shaw describes himself as 'a charming old fart' who enjoys time spent with old friends, and whose real life relationship with Dennis Hopper makes their sequence stand out; both had first worked together in 1956 on the Irwin Allen production "The Story of Mankind," and had recently reunited for Hopper's directorial outing "Backtrack" aka "Catchfire" (oddly enough, this would also prove the last feature role for Bradford Dillman, spending his final three decades in blissful retirement).

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.

Half of 'The Heart of Justice' consists of a recurrent series of situations after a crime was committed.

Elliot Burgess (Dermot Mulroney) is an aristocratic youngster from the high society of New York, and he assassins a successful author of bestsellers, Austin Blair (Dennis Hopper), after the old man has been having an affair with his teenage sister, Emma Burgess (Jennifer Connelly), in the exclusive club, where all the Burgesses usually spend their summer.

Particularly, Blair's latest novel blatantly portrays all the Burgess in a satirical way, out of the pillow-talk from such an affair.

There also is incest suggested between both siblings as one of the motivations for the crime.

As usual with the 'Neo Noir' productions, 'The Heart of Justice' is almost flawless technically, exuding all the enthusiasm of a 100-percent American genre in plain Manhattan.

Similarly, the cast is awesome; Connelly perfectly takes up the role of the demolishing 'femme fatale' in this story, in this case being a teenage lady, just coming out from high school. This is HER movie, indubitably.

However, 'The Heart of Justice' skids in its approach to the story; the profile and the demeanor of its characters don't correspond to real 'yuppies' from the 'top of the world'.

The movie also fails managing the series of events; the extensive series of flashbacks usually turn uninteresting and awkward.

The success of the Columbo TV series had to do with the clown side of the weird detective; such a story-spoiler-style wouldn't fit in a 'Noir' (or 'Neo Noir') movie though, always so bleak and intellectual.

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.