r a character is warm or cold is ultimately in the eye of the individual filmgoer.
Before more closely examining the explicit or implicit statements made about the legal profession by each of these films, it will be useful to first briefly summarize their main plot lines. Following the examination of the protrayals in these movies, we will consider how the picture drawn of the legal profession relates to broader conventions of Hollywood portrayal, and to assumptions implicit in the popular culture.
In "And Justice For All," Al Pacino plays a criminal defense attorney in Philadelphia. (Each of these films takes place in a big-city environment; in some the city is explicitly named; in others a fictional but probably East Coast city is implied.) Pacino is pressured--under threat of disbarment--to take on the defense of a judge (previously shown as unyielding on the letter of the law and indifferent to justice) who is guilty of a violent rape. At the climax of the film, Pacino runs amok in his trademark manner, and accuses his own client of committing the crime.
"From the Hip" stars Judd Nelson as a young lawyer, just out of law school, who--as in "And Justice For All" finds himself defending guilty client, this time in a murder case. Eventually, following a hint from a wise senior partner, he uses a legal loophole in his oath as a defense attorney to cause his client to effectively proclaim his own guilt from the stand.
"Suspect" and "Presumed Innocent" both deal with political corruption. In "Suspect," Cher is a defense lawyer defending a homeless man charged in a murder. Eventually, engaging in an unofficial investigation of the case along with juror Dennis Quaid, she discovers that the murderer is in fact the judge presiding over her case, who killed his secretary to prevent disclosure of a previous incident in which he "fixed" the outcome of a trial.
"Presumed Innocent" is the only film of these four whose ...