The Accused

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source: The Accused

A girl is raped by a bunch of men in the game room of a bar, and they are cheered on by other drunks. No one wants to come forward about what they saw, and the girl's lawyer gives in easily by letting the men off on a lesser charge and lesser jail time. The victim is furious and feels even more trashy because she doesn't want these guys to walk away with the truth hidden. The lawyer then decides to prosecute the guys who cheered and supported the rape in order to make sure the truth comes out. This movie had a much deeper meaning and story than simply a rape. The victim here comes off as flirty and provocatively dressed and often times it makes it seem like they were "asking for it" and a girls character can really be hurt by that and this movie beautifully shows that no matter how you act, or dress, or even what you say has no justification on rape or doing something to someone when they tell you "no". It's rape pure and simple and these jerks that watched and cheered and did nothing are very responsible and very guilty too. The movie had many good messages and it's an honest depiction of rape and how people try to classify it in different ways, when in reality rape is rape and there are no innocent sexual abuse or rape cases out there. I thought Jodie did an amazing job, as did Kelly McGillis as her attorney. Bernie Coulson is also a great underrated star who did well here. Leo Rossi is such an annoying actor when he needs be and he did really well as one of the "cheerleaders" here. The direction was pretty good and the over all story was very nicely done. I think the thing I liked best was the victim's need to become a stronger woman after the events occurred, that really spoke to me, because it was almost like a passage into womanhood for her. I thought the movie was really good, it was honest and blunt and did well with telling the whole story without details and then at the end it had the courtroom drama, which I always love, and then the details come out and we here them from many peoples point of view. 4/10 stars - nice drama

After years of never having done so, I recently watched Jodie Foster's "amazing" "performance" in "The Accused". Jodie's normally a darn fine actress, and it was bizarre to see such an absolutely awful performance from her. This was pure and simple bad acting, and one of the least impressive Oscar winning performances I've seen. The only positive about her performance is that she is (slightly) better than the cartoon characters that populated the bar and the cardboard cutout of Kelly McGillis they wheeled from one scene to the next. This film had a solid story, an important message to tell and what appeared to be a good screenplay, but a large chunk of this got lost somewhere in the mess of meaningful expressions and shouty overacting. The particularly appalling acted ending of the film appears to be a parody of the end of a Rocky movie. I was laughing for about ten seconds before I realized that it wasn't supposed to be funny.

Jodie Foster sears the screen as a gang-rape victim, but no director has yet figured out how to film a rape sequence without it coming across as sensational or titillating to some pervy audiences. This assault in a bar, complimented with flashing pinball machine lights and a hunky attacker's thrusting rear-end, is prettied up for no apparent reason, and the other attackers and various on-lookers don't ring true. Kelly McGillis, playing the prosecutor who brings the rape's ringleaders to trial, is another problem: harried, breathy and fake-dramatic, McGillis doesn't so much create a character as she does reinforce a legal stereotype. Foster holds this one together with her Oscar-winning performance and, although I didn't find her a particularly convincing drunk, she pulls off the trampy side of her character admirably well and really gets into the rage of Sarah Tobias. Jonathan Kaplan's direction is a bit pedestrian; he keeps focusing on things that don't matter (such as McGillis' strained relationship with her co-workers, who seem to do little but walk up and down the office aisles). The movie wants to pack a powerful punch (and ends with rape statistics that are sobering if unnecessary). However, if one viewer out there secretly finds the rape sequence 'hot' instead of disturbing, this picture fails to do its job. **1/2 from ****

It is very hard watching this movie because it is such a shocking story. A girl is gang raped by 3 men in a bar, where a crowd of male customers are shouting, clapping and cheering it on like it's a show. Jodie Foster plays Sarah Tobias, the girl who is raped. She is not shown as this good virgin but someone who has made mistakes in the past and on the night she was raped but in no way deserved what happened to her. It is shown that before she was raped, she was drunk, had smoked pot, flirted with the men and even made a joke about taking one of them back to her trailer and sleeping with him in front of her boyfriend's face. It must have been a very demanding role for Jodie Foster to do, especially near the end of the film where we see a flashback of the rape and it is very realistic and goes a lot further than any other films about rape has. It must have been very hard for Jodie to do that sequence most of all. She is totally amazing in this role where her character comes across as tough but has a vulnerable side and doesn't have anyone to look out for her until Kathryn Murphy (Kelly McGillis) comes into her life. Kelly McGillis does start off as cool but as the story goes on, we see a compassionate woman who wants to stand up for Sarah's rights and wants to right the wrong she did when she accepted a plea bargain for the charge of reckless endangerment with Sarah's rapists. She then decides the only way she can make up for it, is to prosecute the men who egged the rapists on and feels she can prosecute them using the charge of criminal solicitation which means the rapists will stay in jail for the whole sentence. I liked the relationship between McGillis and Foster who are completely different people. Sarah is more loose, she's been arrested for drugs in the past, she smokes pot and drinks, she lives in a trailer park and is into astrology. Kathryn, on the other hand, comes across as squeaky clean, a goody-two shoes, conservative, educated in Law school, and is very middle-class. You wouldn't think these two could ever bond but they do over this case and end up caring for one another in a way neither thought they would. The film is very graphic and leaves nothing to the imagination in the rape sequence and the language that is used. The language during the rape when the crowd is shouting 'Hold her down', 'needle-dick', 'poke that *' is very colourful and cruel. It shows these men have a total disregard of the feelings for women, particularly the callous way they talk about the rape as being a show Sarah put on and the rapists were only following her actions and don't have any reason to feel guilty for what they did to her. It is a difficult film to watch but when the film ends, you have a positive feeling that justice has been served as the men who egged on the rape are just as bad and guilty as the rapists.

I don't watch many courtroom dramas. I've seen most of the great ones: 12 Angry Men, Witness for the Prosecution, To Kill a Mockingbird. Of all the ones that predate The Accused, Not many push as far into the red zone as this. As you go back through the decades of Hollywood cinema, films get more and more censored. In parts, The Accused is quite brutal. It would probably have seemed even more so to those who viewed it upon release 20 years ago. There are two trials in this movie. For the first, the accused persons have been charged with rape. For the second, the accused persons (different people) are charged with the crime of cheering it on (to put it in more casual terms). What the movie gives us a taste of is extremely inhumane, worse than murder even. That and two good actresses at the top of their game, results in a credible, involving courtroom drama. The screenplay is a tad over written in some places, so it's not a brilliant movie, but it is a fine specimen to sample for those who enjoy this genre.

Jodie Foster's performance is good and the gang rape scene at the end of the film is horrific, but the whole movie has the unfortunate feel of a made-for-TV movie. As Jarvis Cocker of Pulp sang, "A movie made for TV, with bad dialogue, bad acting, and no interest. Along with no story and no sex." Actually, I don't feel the movie was THAT uneventful (I just wanted to squeeze in the Pulp reference, to tell you the truth.) But the difficult subject matter is rendered tame with a boring court case and lots of "You can't win this trial!" dialogue between Kelly McGillis and her bosses. What's worse, the conclusion of the case of the case is never in doubt. Yawn. The movie is best when it focuses on how Sarah reacts to the rape. She is a fragile woman who acts braver than she is, and her struggle with the rape is rendered clearly and plainly on Foster's face and in her mannerisms. The scene in the record store is uncomfortable and disconcerting, as it should be. McGillis, though, isn't believable as the prosecutor. She is too bland, too unconvincing; she seems like a calculated attempt at a strong woman character. She never exists as anything more than "the lawyer." This could have been a very powerful film, one that conveys the pain and anguish of such a terrible crime. As it is, I had to settle for a few powerful moments and some toothless filler.

One of the roughest films ever produced that is pure misery to sit through due to its realism and Jodie Foster's striking Oscar-winning performance. Foster stars as a sexual victim who tries to get prison sentences imposed upon the men who cheered on her gang rape at a sleazy roadhouse. Foster is far from being an angel herself and every little thing in her past seems to come back and haunt her. A great supporting turn from Kelly McGillis (who plays Foster's lawyer) just adds to Foster's show-stopping role. Not a film I love, but a good film that displays the seemingly ungodly cinematic talents of Jodie Foster. 4 stars out of 5.

Controversial look at womens rights in the liberated 1980's, focusing on a gang rape in a crowded bar. Film claims high ideals and explores the right of a woman to decline sexual advances at any stage, despite giving out signals of encouragement to dumb-ass males. 'The Accused' has been highly praised because of its head-on tackling of its subject matter, but the film is crude and clumsy with Foster (as the victim) and McGillis (as her attorney) no better than adequate in stereotyped roles. The explicitness of the rape scene leaves a sour taste in the mouth, and questions whether the films intentions were anything more than cheap entertainment disguised by its claiming of the moral high-ground. Whilst not denying the important issues which the film may have brought into the public eye, looking at 'The Accused' purely through the cinematic lens it is a cheap sham. 'Straw Dogs' and even 'I Spit on your Grave' are both far superior.