Criminal Law (1988) We're accustomed to watching high profile thrillers that require a certain amount of suspended belief.......
Up to a point, if the movie promises to show us a good time, we're willing to look past a few barely believable twists and turns........
This movie, however, demands you submit to a prefrontal lobotomy in order to swallow its entire premise.
In other words........give us a ****in' break, will ya?
Not that it isn't entertaining......at times.
Gary Oldman practically gives himself a nervous breakdown playing a supremely arrogant young defense attorney who specializes in razzle-dazzling juries into acquitting his clients, regardless of their actual guilt or innocence.......
Which he does, in fact, for a rich-boy psycho (Kevin Bacon, wisely underplaying his lunacy), with some serious mother issues.
Before Oldman can celebrate his big win, Bacon continues his merry killing spree, raping, killing and immolating young girls and then stuffing their mouths with diapers.
Theses girls, you see ,all had abortions, and Bacon's been nursing a lifelong hate on his OB-GYN mom, who's a busy abortionist. And this loony-tune' decided not wait around for the repeal of Roe Vs. Wade.........
And here's where the film instantly flies off the rails, with a shook-up Oldman deciding to play legal cat-and-mouse with Bacon, in order to entrap him into incriminating himself.
Since it's already established that Bacon's way too smart and cunning to ever fall for Oldman's blatant, clumsy ploys, you can only grimace and roll your eyes as Oldman launches into increasingly hysterical, stupid and ruinous illegal behavior.
We'll not reveal anymore.......you can already guess this film will keep careening on to its spectacular, far fetched and borderline laughable conclusion.
One bright light shines in this mess.......actress Karen Young as a murder victim's friend who suffers through the booga-booga low grade horror scenes where Bacon pops out at her like a lethal jack-in-the-box.
We've adored this actress every since we saw her film debut in 1983's "Handgun" (a.k.a, 'Deep In The Heart'. (Check out our post on 3/21//17). She played a virginal school teacher who wreaks stern revenge on a Texas asshole who date-raped her.
Once again, Young is a sight to behold as she brings forth a bottomless supply of both fear and rage to defend her own life against Bacon. It's enough of a stark, showstopping moment to make us wish it was in a far better movie than this one..........
And Karen Young's presence alone is the only reason we're giving this film even 1 single star (*). Without her, it's a zero waste of time.
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