Such a great film

Rating: 10/10 (8 November 2017)

Sidney Lumet had an extraordinary talent for making movies that kind of sneak up on you with their greatness. I have seen this film at least a dozen times, and I know I love it, but I'm consistently surprised by just how great it really is and how many different things this film tackles and how well it accomplishes everything. It's a character study and it contains what is easily one of Pacino's greatest performances. (I was struck by how much you can just enjoy staring at Pacino's face on film.) It's about the relatively new phenomena of a media circus surrounding an event, and it's probably never been dealt with in a better way on film. It's pretty much a perfect film.