Thursday, November 29, 2007

Find Me Guilty


Viewing Sidney Lumet's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead linked me to seeing what else he has been up to in recent years. Find Me Guilty came out in 2006 and to my mind, deserved a greater audience and a better reception than it received.

Lumet is like an orchestra conductor in the courtroom. And extra attention to orchestration is needed when you are trying to tell the story of a trial in the 80s involving 20 mob defendants, their lawyers which took two years to complete. A Lumet courtroom is an interior with the right camera angle and well crafted observation of what light does in a finite interior. But this is no ordinary court or trial. It has an outrageous center.

That center is Jackie DiNorscio, a mobster whose family and interactions were government witnesses in the longest and probably most expensive criminal case in federal court history. Vin Diesel's performance and the real life character of Jackie are fascinating. He has the kind of endearing characteristics that America in its love affair with the mob appreciated with Tony Soprano, is obviously a heinous amoral sociopath criminal, but also toggles between buffoon and a person with intelligence and some emotional depth. DiNorscio was the only defendant of the 20 already in prison and burned by former legal counsel decided to defend himself.

Find Me Guilty clearly sits in the zone of satisfying entertainment. Ron Silver as the presiding judge struggles to keep his court in control, but the script of the film (with healthy helpings of actual trial transcript) and an attention to detail by a master director. (In the a special feature on the DVD, Lumet says he approved the hire of every courtroom extra) is really what keeps things grounded.

Lumet's openings are often memorable. Find Me Guilty begins with some choice footage of a 80s Rudolph Guliani with hair back in his zealous prosecutor days pontificating with flourish about efforts to eradicate the mafia. That shot is quickly followed by a botched murder attempt, which is a powerful visceral experience because its significance is not known in context of the story. It turns out to be very key to the storyline. The target is Jackie Dinorsico and the gunman with a 22 caliber is his troubled junkie cousin who later turns out to be the star witness in the large scale RICO trial. Progressive disclosure is a storytelling tool that Lumet uses well and wisely. There is some of this in Find Me Guilty but it is central to the drama in the current release of Before the Devil Knows Your Dead. Not often to never does one get to see accomplished work by a maestro in his sixth decade of filmmaking.
posted by well-executed buffet at 7:12 PM
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