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Back Shelf Beauties
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Find Me Guilty Last year at the Academy Awards, famed director Sidney Lumet was awarded an honorary Oscar. While celebrating him and showing clips from his most famous movies (Family Business, The Verdict, The Whiz, Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, and more), the Academy also included footage from his latest project, Find Me Guilty. When star Vin Diesel showed up on screen looking a little paunchy and wearing some sort of hair piece (and without a duck co-star anywhere in sight), the snarky among us (including me) bellowed loudly while visions of Gigli were dancing in our heads. Surprise! It doesn't stink. Based on a true story, using actual courtroom dialogue (this is mentioned at the beginning of the film because you wouldn't believe stuff like this would be allowed to happen in a courtroom), Diesel stars as Jackie DiNorscio - an alleged mobster hauled into court with the entire alleged Lucchese crime family of northern New Jersey (What? No Paulie Walnuts and Tony Soprano?!?!?!). All are forced to stand trial for violations of the RICO Act (racketeering and mafia-ing), and the US District Attorney's office, led by prosecutor Sean Kierney (Linus Roache) is excited because they have a great deal of evidence, and the eye witness testimony of mob turncoat - Jackie's drug addicted cousin who tried to shoot him at the beginning of the film. While the rest of the defendants have a stellar defense team led by Ben Klandis (Peter Dinklage), Jackie is tired of paying his lawyer to lose cases, so he decides to defend himself, which leads to a circus in the courtroom, but might prove to us he is crazy like a fox. Will Jackie and the family be convicted? Will he screw up the entire case? Find Me Guilty is a mixed movie that sometimes seems to be the on the road to disaster, but comes back with some interesting comic and dramatic moments that make it bearable. Lumet's biggest problem is the balance between comedy and drama. Find Me Guilty starts off as a mob farce (and a very funny one at that), but, eventually, starts to be a movie about redemption and introspection for Jackie. Frankly, it works better when it's a comedy. The dialogue from Lumet and co-writers TJ Mancini and Robert McCrea is crisp, the audience can't help but laugh at the outrageous antics of the mobsters in court, and Jackie says the type of stuff every one thinks they would in such a situation. Unfortunately, Lumet doesn't give the audience a good feel for how the trial is going, or any of the evidence used in court. We see Jackie's antics, but not much else, so the drama doesn't seem as urgent when presented to us. While the movie has it flaws, don't count the cast among them. Diesel reminds us of those crazy, heady, innocent days of Boiler Room (a 2000 movie that is GREAT if you want to rent it on DVD), when people noticed he could act, and he puts in a very good performance whether being asked to act crazy and out of line in court, or in those sad moments when it looks like the family he has always loved, his crime family, is ready to turn its back on him after he stayed true to them through thick and thin. Diesel makes the pudgy Mafioso into a charming, positive, lovable underdog fighting an unfair court system, if you can forget Jackie did all of that drug dealing, bribery, money laundering and mail fraud he committed. You'll also enjoy Ron Silver, as Judge Finestein, and Dinklage. Both take Jackie under their wing and provide him the kind of loving advice and comfort you think the big lug needed in life all along. Best of all, they do it realistically without any theatrics or attempts to make us cry at any costs. Dinklage also stands out for his great command of screen, and making the kind of gripping closing statement the most seasoned attorneys might be jealous of. Here's the biggest problem with Find Me Guilty. The audience is fairly certain everyone on trial is guilty, but Lumet and crew want us to think of these guys as the underdogs, while the prosecutor is portrayed as a madman willing to do anything to win the case? The whole movie is about whether or not they get away with murder, racketeering, drug dealing, and more. Sure, we love movies like The Godfather and Goodfellas, and TV shows like The Sopranos, but the major characters in those movies always lose something to remind us they are bad guys. Michael loses his soul and family in The Godfather. Henry Hill loses the ability to lead his life in Goodfellas, and has to deal with everyone turning their backs on him before and after he becomes an informant. Tony Soprano lives a paranoid life waiting for the Feds to arrest him, or someone to shoot him (and eventually gets shot by Uncle Junior!). Everyone of these anti-hero mob guys gets his comeuppance in some way. What do Jack and the rest of the Lucchese guys stand to lose in the course of all of this? Find Me Guilty could be Vin Diesel's first step towards redemption as an actor. If he can avoid doing The Pacifier 2 along the way, maybe he'll get one of those Oscars someday. 2 Waffle (Out Of 4) Copyright 2006 - WaffleMovies.com
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