Ned Stark is the Assistant DA on a clear case of murder. On the day of sentencing the father of the accused pleads with the jury to not give his son the death sentence. When he is removed from the stand he draws a gun and takes the jury hostage. Blaming his son's poor defence for the outcome of the trial, he demands to see Stark and gives him an ultimatum 24 hours to build a defence for his son and prove his innocence or at least a reasonable doubt.
I wouldn't call myself a `fan' of Caruso, but I did like him in NYPD Blue and, since he has done the same performance in everything he's done since, I tend to watch things that he's in which brings to this movie. I'm not a lover of courtroom thrillers with their last minute twists and shock endings, but I can get into them if they are exciting and pretty tight. However this film is anything but; built on the thinnest of plots with almost no logic to speak of it was doomed from less than 15 minutes in. An exciting and quite good final 10 minutes don't make up for anything and it isn't very good.
The plot relies heavily on Demond Doyle not standing up for himself and telling his lawyer about evidence that proves his whereabouts the reason he keeps quiet are very poorly put forward and are clumsily put down to the `black man's lot is not a happy lot'! It moves past this as quickly as possible, hoping we'll just accept it as fact and not question it. The rest of the film is daft, as Stark makes easy work of the clues that somehow no one else had time to even consider.
The film also has a laughable scene that stood out so much that I much mention it. Caruso chases a suspect down alleys and over wasteland. When it is clearly Caruso himself you can see that he runs like a woman compared to the perp he is chasing! However he is replaced by a stunt double for much of the scene; a stunt double, may I add, who looks nothing like him and who's red wig is about twice the size of Caruso's own barnet!
Despite this, Caruso is alright if you like him like I said, he's doing nothing new. Dutton is stronger and hams it up well when given the chance. The support cast are all pretty much TV quality at best and they just fill the gaps really. Only Jonz stands out as the accused he does OK despite the totally unbelievable situation surrounding his character!
Overall, a poor film where the word `thriller' can only be ascribed to the final 10 minutes (and even then, only if you swallow the whole unlikely setup). Not really worth watching, the plot is just far too weak to do anything with and the cracks show from the very start.
