OUTRAGE

Old-fashioned courtroom drama—with familiar criminal-justice issues. Late-middle-aged warehouse clerk Dennis Riordan cold-bloodedly shoots Cletus Johnson outside a Harlem bar, then turns himself in, confessing voluntarily on videotape. Why? Because a year or so earlier Johnson rape/murdered Riordan's daughter—but got off scot-free when Judge Lengel threw out his confession and evidence on technicalities; furthermore, Riordan's wife died a half-year later from sheer despair and disgust. So now Riordan has no interest in being saved from a Murder Two charge—which means an uphill fight for young lawyer Ben Gordon. He picks away at witnesses, hoping to work on the jury's sympathy, but is barred from introducing Johnson's rape-murder as evidence. Then, however, the prosecutor introduces the video tape of Riordan's confession, with its references to the Johnson case; so Gordon subpoenas Judge Lengel as a defense witness to explain the contents of the videotape. And though Judge Lengel is a hostile witness, he eventually goes over the legal issues from the controversial Johnson case. Finally, then: the jury battles for days to find the legal system guilty. Some sparky dramatic courtroom moments—but the plot and its law-and-order theme are drably old-hat, with wall-to-wall stereotypes.