The Star Chamber

1983

Action / Crime / Drama / Mystery / Thriller

17
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 43% · 13 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 43% · 1K ratings
IMDb Rating 6.4/10 10 8292 8.3K

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Plot summary

As violence escalates in Los Angeles and heinous murders are committed, Steven Hardin, a young judge of the California Supreme Court, must struggle with his tortured conscience and growing despair as he watches helplessly as the ruthless criminals brought before his court go free because clever lawyers find obscure loopholes in the law.

Director

Peter Hyams Photo
Peter Hyams

Top cast

Michael Ensign Photo
Michael Ensign as Judge Kirkland
Ethelreda Leopold Photo
Ethelreda Leopold as Party Guest
Michael Douglas Photo
Michael Douglas as Steven Hardin
Robin Gammell Photo
Robin Gammell as Judge Archer
720p.BluRay 1080p.BluRay
998.68 MB
1280*544
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 48 min
Seeds 2
2 GB
1920*816
English 5.1
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 48 min
Seeds 9

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by The_Core 7 / 10

Intense and thought-provoking

Reviewed by classicsoncall 7 / 10

"What about justice? Do you ever deal with that?"

I first saw this film about twenty years ago and recall being fairly impressed by it. However perceptions change after all that time, and even though I welcomed the opportunity to catch it again the other night on cable, I couldn't help but pick up on a bunch of inconsistencies that brought down my original estimation of the picture.My biggest problem was with the 'in the scoop' argument by the defense attorney. Insisting that the garbage in which a gun used to commit a series of murders was still considered private property until it was co-mingled with everyone else's garbage in the body of the truck led to Judge Hardin's (Michael Douglas) decision that the evidence thus obtained was inadmissible. However it seems to me, had the contents with the gun been dumped, wouldn't the defense argument have been that there was no way to prove the gun came out of a particular garbage can? Unlikely as that might have been, there's your classic reasonable doubt.Then, when Monk and Cooms had their case thrown out on a technicality, they reacted as if they actually had been guilty but got away with it. But since it was later revealed that they were not the ones who killed the boy with the bloody sneaker, there was no reason in hindsight for them to have had that particular reaction. And what about that bloody sneaker? If they were not the real killers, what connection did that sneaker in their car have with the story? Absolutely none. So why was it even there in the first place? With all that, I thought the original premise of the story was pretty good. What decent, law abiding individual hasn't gotten fed up with the convoluted outcomes that result from slimy lawyers working the system to portray criminals as victims? With a little more work this one could have been an effective psychological drama pitting vigilante judges against hardened criminals who got what they deserved, even if it meant circumventing the law. But next time, give us a Judge Hardin that's not so angst driven about a mere technicality like Monk and Cooms being innocent. You know those creeps had to be guilty of something.
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