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DVD : The Star ChamberBrowse or Search and Buy Online our Best Sellers Shopping Sales of DVD and The Star Chamber. Rating:  - sorry I got itcould have been a truly interesting film, just plain simpleminded and annoying. Rating:  - Beware the chamberAs anyone who has ever read Plato's REPUBLIC will tell you, the concept of justice is not nearly so straightforward as we would like to believe. In a perfect world, all the bad guys would go straight to the slammer and all the good guys would be set free and exonerated. We live, of course, in what is far from a perfect world. There are two extremes to the equation. On the one hand, a police state where you're guilty until proven innocent and deprived of rights that could prove that you are, in fact, guiltless. On the other hand is a legal system that is so complex that there are thousands of loopholes every step of the way by which clever lawyers may get their client(s) off on a technicality - regardless of how absurd the technicality is. The present movie asks an intersting question: what if a group of judges got together to do something about the latter situation and correct in-justice? What if, being the incarnation of the "law," they dispensed justice in a manner that was more beneficial to society (or so they hoped)? This premise leads them into the Star Chamber where they review cases at their leisure. Of course, the obvious question arises: what if they mis-fire? To complicate matters, what if the people they want to whack are guilty of other egregious crimes, but innocent of the crime they've been accused? Herein lies the premise of THE STAR CHAMBER. It's too bad I waited until just recently to see this movie as I'm a fan of Michael Douglas and Hal Holbrook. But, it was certainly worth the wait. I'll see YOU in court! Rating:  - great film, great plot, great acting, needs better ending!This is one of my favorite Michael Douglas films of all time! Douglas gives a superb performance as a young, ambitious, and intense judge who strongly desires to do right for his fellow man. However a series of loopholes manifested by witty attorneys force him to let savage criminals go free without punishment. Enter fellow judge and mentor Hal Holbrook who senses Douglas's frustration and reveals to him a shattering secret. Holbrook's "father figure" performance is very enjoyable and probably makes him the most likeable character in the movie. The other actors are just as convincing. Yaphett Kotto, who never disappoints gives an excellent performance as a cop trying hard to solve a series of child murders. James B. Sikking gives a extremely dramatic performance as the distraught father of a murder victim. However, the ending could have used some improvement. Never the less, this film delivers an entertaining display of flaws in the judicial system. Rating: - AND JUSTICE FOR ALLThis 1983 film was one of the first to use vigilante justice with JUDGES as the catalysts. It offers a tragic look at how our judicial system is held captive by its own mechanizations. Michael Douglas plays a judge who is forced to obey the law in cases where technical mishaps or improper protocol allows known criminals to go free. Douglas discovers that his mentor (Hal Holbrook) sits on a panel of nine judges who serve their own method of justice to these kind of criminals. He is asked to join them when one of their members commits suicide. Whether or not this kind of vigilante justice is ethical or whether it merely reduces the judges to the level of their victims forms the core of the movie. Douglas and Holbrook are excellent, but Sharon Gless is wasted in her role as Douglas' wife. Yaphet Kotto is his usual sturdy self in his role as the detective who ultimately helps Douglas bring the judicial bad guys down. The ending is a little overblown, but all in all, STAR CHAMBER is an interesting movie. Rating: - "Our Own Court Of Last Resort"Michael Douglas and Hal Holbrook star in 1983's "The Star Chamber", an excellent drama which has Douglas portraying Superior Court Judge "Steven R. Hardin", who, time and time again, is forced to return criminals to the streets due to legal technicalities. Eventually, he can take it no more -- and resorts to joining an exclusive nine-member organization composed of fellow judges -- The "court of last resort" (as Holbrook puts it during the film). Hardin's internal struggle in dealing with his newly-acquired (and ultra-secretive) "power" is dealt with nicely in the film, with Michael Douglas giving an outstanding performance in this reviewer's opinion. In fact, everyone in this cast is letter-perfect in their parts here. From Douglas (who was 38 years old when he made this movie) .... to Holbrook .... to Sharon Gless (who plays Michael's wife) .... to Yaphet Kotto (who gives a very good and restrained performance as a police detective). And the actors that the filmmakers got to play the killers and assorted crooks in this movie will give you the willies by just glancing at them. The two main bad guys in the film are played by Don Calfa and Joe Regalbuto, and both are wholly convincing as all get out, especially Calfa as "Lawrence Monk". This guy's "look" and ever-bulging eyeballs just scream "shady character". He'll give you the creeps right from the get-go. Great casting, IMO. I also very much like the way members of the police are portrayed in "The Star Chamber". They seem like "real" cops to me in this picture; not phony in any manner -- another first-rate job of casting and characterization. For baseball fans, there are even a few brief "cameos" made by some major-league baseball players (circa 1982 or very early 1983) when the filmmakers took their cameras to Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles to film a scene. The two judges (Douglas and Holbrook) take their wives to a ball game between the hometown Dodgers and Atlanta Braves. During the course of this scene, several different Dodgers' and Braves' players appear on screen -- such as veteran Atlanta knuckleballer Phil Niekro (who was pitching against Los Angeles that night), first baseman Chris Chambliss and catcher Bruce Benedict of the Braves, and then-L.A. stars Dusty Baker and Steve Sax. About the only humor in the movie comes during this Dodger Stadium scene, with several funny lines of dialogue being spoken, such as Holbrook's character repeatedly referring to various Dodger players as "class acts" ("Baker's a class act"; "That Sax is a class act"; "Come on Guerrero! A class act, that guy"). Holbrook gets in another witticism when he looks around at the crowd in bewilderment and utters: "Why does everybody here bring radios? As if they won't believe what they see until Vin Scully tells them HE saw it too." (LOL.) Sharon Gless gets in a good line too (after discovering that Dusty Baker is making $800,000 a year, which is, of course, a mere pittance when compared to today's ridiculous sports salaries) -- "Eight hundred thousand DOLLARS? That's four times more than the President of the United States makes." To which Holbrook's character chimes in with -- "Baker's a better hitter." :-) This "20th Century Fox" DVD sports a very good Anamorphic Widescreen (2.35:1) version of "The Star Chamber"; plus there's a Full Frame/Pan-and-Scan (1.33:1) edition of the movie on the other side of this dual-sided disc. The Widescreen version is (naturally, IMO) by far the best way to watch this motion picture -- or any other movie that was originally filmed in a Widescreen format. A good example of the drastic difference between the far-inferior Pan-and-Scan (1.33:1) format and the intended Widescreen (2.35:1) version of this movie comes in DVD Chapter #13. There's a scene which has Hal Holbrook's character (at his home) getting up to get a drink, while Michael Douglas stands on the far right side of the frame. This nicely-photographed scene, via the proper aspect ratio of 2.35:1 Widescreen, shows Holbrook on the far left side of the screen, while Douglas remains in the shot on the far right. But if you watch the horrid Pan-&-Scan version of this disc, you'll see only Mr. Holbrook during the above-mentioned portion of the film; while Michael Douglas is completely cut out of the shot (due, of course, to the zooming in and "re-formatting" that is required to blow up a 2.35:1 image to fill up a 1.33:1 TV frame. There are several well-composed shots in "The Star Chamber" that benefit nicely from the w-i-d-e 2.35:1 composition. Lighting and shadows are also used quite effectively here, with "shafts" of light accentuating the visuals in several parts of the movie. The film is in Color, and the colors are well-rendered and natural-looking on this DVD. Let's take a look at some more information regarding this DVD-Video product................ >> AUDIO -- Three separate Dolby Digital soundtracks are provided -- English 5.1 Surround; Spanish 2.0 Stereo; and French 2.0 Stereo. >> SUBTITLES -- In English and in Spanish. >> MENUS -- Static, non-animated variety of Menus. ... Sub-Menus for "Languages", "Scene Selections", and "Special Features". ... No music utilized. >> CHAPTER STOPS -- 28 total chapter breaks included. >> BONUS MATERIAL -- The only supplements are two Trailers. One is a full-length Original Theatrical Trailer for "The Star Chamber"; the other is a shorter "Teaser Trailer" for the film. >> PAPER ENCLOSURE? -- Yes. There is a two-sided, one-page color insert (with Chapter Index). The front side of this insert, btw, features a different photo than that of the cover art on the DVD's Keep Case. Nice job on the DVD photos, IMO. >> THEATRICAL RELEASE DATE FOR THE FILM -- August 5, 1983. >> DVD RELEASE DATE -- February 1, 2005. >> MPAA FILM RATING -- "R" (For Language and Violent Content). >> FEATURE RUNNING TIME -- 1 hour, 48 minutes. ------------------ This 1983 "sleeper" has awakened on an excellently-presented DVD edition from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment! If you currently own the Pan-&-Scan-only VHS version of "The Star Chamber", then toss it out immediately and upgrade to this superior DVD version. |