By April Kim
During the Fordham Law Film Festival, I watched Anatomy of a Murder.
Couple days later, I watched a recent blockbuster, Law Abiding Citizen.
It was just coincidence that I watched these two movies back to back but
I couldn’t help but notice the similarities in the unlikely pair.
Anatomy of a Murder is a comical portrayal of a clever lawyer who
successfully defends a murderess but later finds out that his client was
not innocent. Law Abiding Citizen is about a man taking revenge into
his own hands after a prosecutor cuts a deal with the criminal who
killed his family. On the surface the two movies seem to have nothing
in common other than the fact that they involve lawyers but in fact they
carry a similar message: there are GIANT holes in our legal system.
What are we to do as citizens in a country where a lawyer can
successfully defend a guilty client even while half believing in her
himself? What are we to do as citizens in a country where prosecutors
cut deals with criminals in order to ensure conviction (albeit for the
wrong crime)? These are the questions that these movies raise and I
thoroughly enjoyed the entertainment as well as intellectual aspects of
these two films. Although the two movies raise questions and give no
answers, perhaps it is a perfect place to start in our journey to find a
better legal system.
