The Verdict

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Film Description

The story of a washed-up lawyer fighting to gain his self-respect. In a towering performance, Paul Newman plays attorney Frank Calvin, who sees one last chance to redeem himself when he is given an open-and-shut medical malpractice case that no one thinks he can win. Instead, he decides to refuse a settlement from the hospital and takes the case, and the legal system, to court. Based on the novel by Barry Reed.

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DVD Extras

2 discs; metal steel book edition. Special features (TBC) include enhanced picture quality, commentaries, restored scenes, documentaries, and a collectable booklet.

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Review by knutsenfam on 3rd October 2005

Paul Newman is the alcohol drenched middle-aged lawyer who has descended from presigious marriage and fancy law firm to...almost nothing. He was betrayed by former father-in-law and by ex wife, and he never got over it.

His friend Mickey (Jack Warden) tosses him a simple case...Get a cash settlement on this clear medical malpractice case and you get 1/3 of the cash for your fee. But Newman, after viewing the young woman on life support, decides he is going to really fight for her and expose what destroyed her brain and killed her baby in St. Catherine Laboure Hospital of Boston.

Newman is up against the superlawyer Concannon (James Mason) and the biased, hostile judge (Milo O'Shea). But it seems...he has his lawyer pal Mickey and great new girlfriend Laura (Charlotte Rampling) on his side - so he thinks.

(A partial spoiler below...)
If you like courtroom dramas, you should love this movie. And the brain damaged young woman - shades of Terri Schiavo - some of the same issues here!

The quiet but potent characters are of course the Jury. Will they be able to see beyond the legal tap dances and manueverings defense lawyer Concannon and the hostile Judge pull on Frank Galvin? Or not?

I thought of this movie many times while brain injured Terri Schiavo took her many days to slowly starve to death, and the Supreme Court Justices argued their turf war arguments with Congress, as if that were the big issue. Wish Ms. Schiavo had a jury.

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