Genuinely still rewarding with each rewatch, its craftsmanship revealing new layers every time. A perfect Hollywood movie. Should be taught in high school English classes.

An actual movie: adults dealing with money and reputation and consequential actions, with dialogue that drives the story and requires attention.

Good precisely because of how average it is. This movie should have come out in April 1997. You’d see the box at Hollywood Video every weekend as you walked the catalog aisles. I wonder if that’s any good. It has people I like in it. I like a good courtroom drama. And that’s what you get: a solid, very-definition-of-workmanlike movie that’s perfectly pleasant and engaging and even a little exciting without ever going above the speed limit or making sudden lane changes. Not remotely in Eastwood’s list of great movies. Comforting nevertheless.