| True Believer | | Cast : | James Woods, Robert Downey Jr. | | Director : | Joseph Ruben | | Studio : | Columbia/Tristar Studios | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Dolby, Widescreen | | Released Date : | February 17, 1989 | | DVD Released Date : | April 03, 2001 | | Language : | Spanish (Dubbed), Portuguese (Dubbed), French (Subtitled), English (Subtitled), Portuguese (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Original Language), Thai (Subtitled), Chinese (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | April 07, 2005 | | Summary | "A good fight is one y'win!" | Content
 | James Woods is erstwhile civil liberties attorney Eddie Dodd, his idealism long since forsaken for 4th Amendment violation-under-every-bed cynicism, & Rbt. Downey, Jr., is his summer intern (well, autumn intern) Roger Barron. Woods character based loosely on Frisco criminal def. lawyer J. Tony Spera.
Dodd's conscience-bending guilt submits to Roger's yuppie charm, & the two pursue the mysteries of why a young Korean gang member is serving time for murder & now's offed a member of some supremacist cult in prison. Woods's Dodd is light years beyond over the top with this, but an excellent supporting cast (Downey, Jr., ["...so we can get off guilty little pricks!"], Margaret Colin, Miguel Hernandez, & "70s Show"'s Kurtwood Smith as a D.A. with a closet full of diced-up skeletons) & brisk dialog make him seem right @home there. To the paranoid, conspiracy-soaked veteran & witness to the original crime: "Cecil, are you what heroes are made of?" Cecil: "I did two tours in 'Nam."
If you can get past the new twist on the climactic courtroom scene & the veritable litany of continuity issues here, "True Believer" is one of the most watchable flicks I've seen---meaning, I can sit thru the whole thing without once hitting the pause button or pondering my full bladder.
The great scene in Eddie's kitchenette (with the de rigueur Chinese food) is especially instructive. When Downey, Jr.'s, Roger spouts armchair activist rhetoric ("We all think it's a good fight."), Woods's Dodd lets loose with a tirade against bleeding-heart do-goodism that would make Bill O'Reilly cringe. |
| Rating | | | Date | March 24, 2005 | | Summary | Excellent drama with suprise ending | Content
| James Woods was great as a burned out "I'll give this job one more try" kind of character who risks his life to discover a deeply buried truth, "his client really is innocent" and his career as an attorney is reborn. Too bad James Woods doesn't get enough parts in Hollywood but I suspect the bottom line is he is not part of the "inner circle" (he's a Reublican). |
| Rating | | | Date | June 02, 2004 | | Summary | A winner film | Content
| James Woods has been one of the best actors in the screen. He is outstanding and always he commits in just five hundred per cent in all his performances. Powerful and expressive, but in Hollywood he has had just isolated opportunities. It's missunderstable.
Earl Dodd is very special lawyer, he isn't a typical image of lucky lawyer. and obviously our character lived with too much passion those singular decades from the sixties and seventies.
From this perpective a singular case challenges him; to assume the defense of a chinese acussed of murder, being not guilty. This movie will tell about all the resources and special methods of our antihero for winning this dark case.
Robert Downey Jr. plays the typical role of the rookie naif lawyer who thinks the world is fair and clean. Soon he'll learn too many issues about how to deal with the life and specaiily in this business.
A well built script allows Woods to release all his stamina and skills, specially in front the Court in the first half of the film.
Solid film , with smart situations and a fine sense of humor. Worthy work. |
| Rating | | | Date | May 07, 2004 | | Summary | Boring | Content
| I'm a big James Woods fan and came across this movie here. I have never heard of it and it is not available at any of the video stores in my area. So I ordered it because of all the positive reviews here, but wound up turning it off in the middle. It was real long, uninteresting, and was taking too long for anything to happen. If you haven't seen this movie before, I would recommend you not buy this yet, like I did. Try checking out "Indictment" or "Dirty Pictures", two of Woods's best movies. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 13, 2002 | | Summary | The guiltier he is, the more he needs us | Content
| This and 'Inherit The Wind' are the best courtroom drama's ever!
A man kills a white suprimacist in prison, and Eddie Dodd, a lawyer who 'does cases cheap, James Woods, his lawyer decides to put the original case on trial.
Chinatown... |
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