True Believer

Rating:
Summary: True believer
Review: another of those non-mainstream James Woods movies that turns out to be the one you remember forever. I honestly don't know how Woods can get so much emotion into a character.

This is probably his greatest work (with Diggstown right there) and you will be able to experience his characters Frustration, pain, and relief right along side him. A touch of humor to lighten but mostly the best dramatic court scenes and flat out grit will have you recommending this to strangers on the street.

Rating:
Summary: True believer
Review: another of those non-mainstream James Woods movies that turns out to be the one you remember forever. I honestly don't know how Woods can get so much emotion into a character.

This is probably his greatest work (with Diggstown right there) and you will be able to experience his characters Frustration, pain, and relief right along side him. A touch of humor to lighten but mostly the best dramatic court scenes and flat out grit will have you recommending this to strangers on the street.

Rating:
Summary: A must for all James Woods junkies!
Review: As a lawyer who has been both prosecutor and public defender, I have to say this is my favorite movie about lawyers and my favorite James Woods performance. I get goosebumps every time I hear his speech about ..."the only good fight is one you win!", said with the passion and spite that only James Woods has perfected. His comment on plea bargaining, that "..this isn't ... Yale, he [the client] doesn't care if we go down but go down nobly. He's looking at 40 years of hard time, and he bet it all on me!" James Woods looks good with a pony tail, and the opening scene where his new intern, played by Robert Downey, Jr., mistakes him for the cocaine dealer is hilarious. So is the scene where Downey tells Woods he is quitting because he is "tired of using exalted legal principles to get off guilty little pricks". (I bet Downey was glad for those exalted legal principles in his own case.) I have to disagree with the comment that this movie realistically portrays the "insidious relationship between police, district attorneys and their snitches". I wholeheartedly doubt that the frame at the heart of this movie is routine anywhere in the United States. But the movie does say something meaningful about the tragedy that happens when good people with good motives go too far. I knew this movie was a touchstone when someone used Downey's line on me during a job interview where I was seeking to hire an assistant district attorney. He didn't get the job, but I haven't forgotten him-and you won't forget this movie.

Rating:
Summary: Boring
Review: 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:
Summary: Fiery performance by James Woods as jaded radical lawyer
Review: James Woods gives such a true to life performance as Eddie Dodd that you really believe he is an attorney who turned performer for this role.

Woods role is reportedly based on the legal career of long-time San Francisco radical attorney Tony Serra. In True Believer Woods (Eddie Dodd) takes up the case of a Korean man wrongly convicted of murder. The man is convicted falsely to facilitate the protection of a 'snitch' within the New York district attorney's office.

The film is a blend of politics, crime and humour and is riveting from start to finish.

On a more practical vein the film successfully illustrates the insidious relationship between police, district attorneys and their 'snitches'.

Woods (Dodd) is hired by the parents of the man convicted of a New York gangland Chinatown murder and sentenced to prison. After eight years in prison the convict's mother and sister approach Dodd. He has just been accused of murdering a fellow inmate and nazi during a prison brawl.

Reluctant at first to take the case, Dodd and his young assistant, played by Robert Downey, eventually unearth the events which led to the frameup and conviction.

Woods is very convincing as the jaded radical who spends his time defending drug dealers and does not want to get involved. When he does, Woods does so with a passion.

The courtroom scenes are authentic and add further touches of realism to the film.

Luis Guzman, currently co-starring, in The Limey has a supporting role as a prison inmate. His courtroom scene is intense.

This film definitely has a political point-of-view and will be enjoyed by viewers interested in the criminal justice system.

Rating:
Summary: A winner film
Review: 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:
Summary: The guiltier he is, the more he needs us
Review: 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...

Rating:
Summary: True Believer
Review: True Believer has to be one of the best movies ever made. The evidence I introduce to support my case is I have watched it 7-8 times without becoming remotely tired of it. (Raiders of the Lost Ark, another favorite of mine, got a little tedious after 3 viewings). True Believer is James Woods at his very best. The story is very plausible and the clues unravel at a perfect pace throughout the film. In fact, the movie gives you the opportunity to piece the puzzle together as the characters do. Robert Downey Jr., is the perfect naive "sidekick" to James Woods cynical been-through-the-grinder attorney. Kurtwood Smith is perfect as the district attorney. If you are a James Woods fan and haven't seen this movie you are in for a treat. Buy it!

Rating:
Summary: A splendid display of the triumph of idealism over cynicism.
Review: True Believer is a film that shows how the human spirit changes, loses its way but is redeemed. James Woods gives a masterful performance as Eddie Dodd, a burnt out lawyer who loses sight of why he first became a lawyer. The sincerity of his performance shines when together with Kim (the Korean wrongly accused of murder) he confesses that the case was really about two people with similiar dilemmas trying to find redemption. The final courtroom scene was masterful as Woods slyly leads the DA to reveal the awful truth behind the original murder case. That scene has the same intensity as the scene in "A Few Good Men" but with more restraint. The plot is well structured with a few twists. Robert Downey, Jr is a good compliment to Woods, balancing the cynicism with a boyish idealism. Margaret Colin is supportive and also balances Woods with an interesting mix of street smarts and pragmaticism.