Cidadão Cohn

Very, very good movie.

This movie is about Roy Cohn, a prosecutor in the McCarthy trials. And let me tell you, Cohn made McCarthy look pretty darn good.

The movie was frightening and it's hard to believe that it's true, but alas it is. The movie is downright bizarre! Also, the acting is excellent and believable. There were also a few good laughs despite the serious matter.

Definitely watch it, especially if you're into history and politics.

Roy Cohn was truly a brilliant man. He graduated from law school before most people even graduated from college. During his prosecuting of the Rosenburgs and his stint as McCarthy's assistant, he was looked upon as a rising star, a "young Commie catching comet" as Walter Winchell called him. For all his panache, brilliane and theatrics, however, Cohn was nothing more then a liar and a crook and was disbarred shortly before his death from AIDs. It made me angry that this man was so brilliant and we could have reaped a great benefit from his talents if he had properly and honestly applied them to helping people. Like so many, however, Cohn was corrupted by power and greed. I have rarely seen an actor who can play a bad guy the way that James Woods can, this man is awesome in every way and they couldn't have picked a better man to play this real life meglomaniac and monster. Woods is so chilling as Cohn that you almost feel that his dying of AIDs is God's punishment. He is sneering in our faces all throughout this film. I see nothing wrong with calling Roy Cohn a monster, but he is like a Frankenstein monster because we made him and let him get away with it. He was a Jew who persecuted Jews and a gay man who persecuted gays. The most disturbing scene for me in the film is where the dying Cohn is literally "haunted" by the Rosenburgs, a victim of the Witch Hunt he drove to suicide and even Senator McCarthy and Joseph Welch (the lawyer who helped bring him down during the infamous Army-McCarthy hearings). Its hard to believe that we could have another Salem Witchcraft period of hysteria in our country but we did less then 50 years ago because of two demagogues named Joe McCarthy and Roy Cohn. Joe Don Baker did a fine job as the infamous Wisconsin Senator but Peter Boyle was the one who did a masterful performance in the 1977 tv film Tail Gunner Joe. They re-enact the scene during the hearings (which were the first of their kind carried live on tv) where Joseph Welch called down the wrath of God on this tyrant in a way no one would ever forget "I don't think I ever really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness...if it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty I would do so...I like to think I'm a gentle man but your forgiveness will have to come from someone else...have you left no sense of decency sir?...at long last have you left no sense of decency? He could have easily said the same thing to Roy Cohn and the answer would have been no.

This film is an amazing study in self-loathing. As Cohn himself puts it in the movie, he was "a Jew who persecuted Jews; a gay who persecuted gays." Always trying to prove something to himself or his parents, he recklessly smashed lives and helped create the paranoia of the McCarthy era.

In the midst of the tragedy there are some very funny moments such as when Cohn eats off the plates of everyone he is dining with including Cardinal Spellman of New York. He was indulged and self-indulgent.

There is a Shakespearian quality to some of the scenes in which Cohn speaks to himself or to the ghosts of people he hurt. This is a disturbing look at human ego as well as a bitterly funny movie.

That rarest of birds, a TV-movie that's every bit as engrossing as any theatrical film. James Woods in a personal-best turn as ruthless McCarthy-era prosecutor Roy Cohn. If you didn't see it on HBO, get over having to pay for something you could have seen for free, and just rent it--you won't be sorry

"Citizen Cohn" (1992): James Woods plays intense characters. This may be his best. Roy Cohn (Woods) was the pit bull dog of a lawyer for Senator Joe McCarthy during the Commie Hunts of the 1950's and beyond. We follow Cohn's life – his self-righteous, contradictory, opportunistic, sleazy life – from childhood to death bed. Structured in flashbacks and flashforwards, we see his twisted points of view along with his victims and lackies. This is one of the best character studies ever made. It's disgusting, and true. Also starring Joe Don Baker, Joseph Bologna, Ed Flanders, Frederick Forrest, Lee Grant, and others. If you like Woods' job in this one (and you will), see "Another Day in Paradise" or the classic "The Onion Field".