Just Call Me Iconoclastic

Rating: 4/10 (5 September 2005)

The courtroom procedure is the worst ever shown on the big screen. Lawyer Finch never brought up the impossibility of a one handed rapist to choke his victim as described. He did a silly exercise to show the girl's father was left-handed yet never brought this point home. He never brought up character references to show the reliability of the defendant. This oversight even existed in the novel, even though Tom's employer interrupted the court to pronounce this fact, and was dismissed from court. Prior to the trial the movie was more believable than the novel, which portrayed a first grade girl with vocabulary and reasoning ability of a much older person. This reminded me of a similar performance by the similarly aged young boy in the novel "Painted House". Just not realistic. I realize that to be critical of such a popular movie is akin to griping about movies such as "Casablanca", "Miracle on Forty Second Street", "Its A Wonderful Life", and their brethren. To my mind the performance of Gregory Peck is the bright spot in an otherwise boring movie. The bright spot was the statement by the black preacher to "Rise; Your father is passing".