The film includes a well-known scene in which Pacino's character yells, "You're out of order! You're out of order! The whole trial is out of order!"
Plot
Arthur Kirkland, a Baltimore defense attorney, is in jail on a contempt-of-court charge after punching Judge Henry T. Fleming while arguing the case of Jeff McCullaugh. McCullaugh was stopped for a minor traffic offense, then mistaken for a killer of the same name, and has already spent a year and a half in jail without being convicted of a crime. Fleming has repeatedly stymied Kirkland's efforts to have the case reviewed. Although there is strong new evidence that McCullaugh is innocent, Fleming refuses to consider his appeal due to its late submission, so he remains in prison. Kirkland starts a new case defending Ralph Agee, a young black cross-dresser arrested for a robbery who is terrified of being sent to prison.
Kirkland regularly visits his grandfather Sam in a nursing home. Sam is progressively becoming senile. It is revealed that Kirkland was abandoned by his parents at a young age, and it was Sam who raised him and put him through law school. Kirkland also begins a romance with legal ethics committee member Gail Packer.
Kirkland has a friendly relationship with Judge Francis Rayford, who takes him on a hair-raising ride in his personal helicopter. Rayford laughs in amusement as he tests how far he can fly before running out of fuel. Kirkland is terrified and begs him to land. Rayford eventually crashes his helicopter in knee-deep water. Rayford, a Korean War veteran, is borderline suicidal; at all times, he keeps a rifle in his chambers at the courthouse and an M1911 pistol in his shoulder holster. He even eats his lunch on a ledge outside his office window, four stories up.
One day, Kirkland is unexpectedly requested to defend Judge Fleming, who has been accused of brutally assaulting and raping a young woman. Although the two loathe each other, Fleming feels that having the person who publicly hates him argue his innocence will be to his advantage. Fleming blackmails Kirkland with an old violation of attorney-client confidentiality, for which Kirkland will likely be disbarred if it were to come to light.
Kirkland's friend and partner Jay Porter is also unstable. He feels guilt for gaining acquittals for defendants who were truly guilty of violent crimes. Porter arrives drunk at Kirkland's apartment, after one of his guilty clients kills two kids following his acquittal. Porter soon shaves his head, claiming that it will make his hair grow back thicker, but he keeps shaving it. After a violent breakdown inside the courthouse—wherein he ends up throwing dinner plates at everybody in the hallway—Porter is taken to a hospital.
Before leaving in the ambulance, Kirkland asks another partner, Warren Fresnell, to handle Agee's court hearing in his absence. Kirkland gives Fresnell a corrected version of Agee's probation report and stresses that it must be shown to the judge, so that Agee will receive probation rather than serve jail time. Fresnell arrives at the courthouse late and forgets to give the judge the corrected version, causing Agee to be sentenced to jail time. Kirkland is livid and attacks Fresnell's car, revealing that thirty minutes after he was sentenced, Agee died by suicide. Meanwhile, Jeff McCullaugh, who has been sexually and physically assaulted by other inmates, finally snaps and takes two hostages. Kirkland pleads with him to surrender, promising to get him out, but a police sniper shoots and kills McCullaugh when he moves in front of a window.
A clearly disturbed Kirkland takes on Judge Fleming's case. Prosecuting attorney Frank Bowers hopes to make his reputation by convicting a judge. Kirkland's client Carl Travers hopes to receive free legal services by offering photos of Judge Fleming engaged in bisexualBDSM with a prostitute. Gail reminds Kirkland of his professional obligations to defend the judge. Kirkland shows the pictures to Fleming, who admits that he is a rapist.
At the trial, Fleming jokes that he would like to see his victim again sometime. In his opening statement, Kirkland sarcastically muses about the legal system and Bowers's ambition. He surprises everyone by saying that Bowers will not convict Fleming because he will, and he proceeds to accuse his client of being guilty. Kirkland is dragged out of the courtroom, venting his rage the whole way. The spectators cheer for Kirkland, Fleming sits down in defeat, and a fed-up Rayford storms out.
As an exhausted Kirkland sits on the courthouse steps, Jay Porter passes on his way back to work, tipping his wig to Kirkland.
Norman Jewison said that he was attracted to the script because it clarified for him the reality that the courtroom is a kind of stage where a drama is played out. He was intrigued by the satirical possibilities of the scenario.[2] He also drew parallels to contemporary politics. "There was a time when the legal profession was inviolate," he said. "Then came Watergate...We're starting to realize that being in the law doesn't mean being above the law."[3]
He was careful to delineate the film's genre. "It's difficult at times to pull the audience back. Sometimes they start to go with the film as a melodrama. We were then able to pull them back with something almost absurd, to shock them out of it because I didn't want it to become a message picture."[4]
Barry Levinson's high school friend Donald Saointz, a practicing attorney, advised him on the screenplay. When the production got off the ground, Saointz served as an advisor for Al Pacino and John Forsythe. He appears in the film as a defense attorney.[5]
Lee Strasberg took a small role as a way of helping his student and friend. He was worried that Al Pacino was being typecast and wanted to see him branch out. Jewison felt that Pacino's role was an inversion of his usual, where Kirkland was the sane person surrounded by nutcases.[6] Pacino liked the fact that Kirkland "was a part of things, not a loner. The sort of characters I usually play are anti-heroes."[7]
...And Justice for All scores 78% on Rotten Tomatoes, 58/100 on Metacritic and 23/30 on Zagat.[11][12][13]Empire magazine calls it a "solid but slightly clichéd courtroom drama" and rates it 3 stars out of 5.[14]
The film was a box-office success. Produced on a modest budget of $4 million, it grossed more than $33.3 million in North America, making it the 24th highest-grossing film of 1979.[1]
According to Newsday, most critics did not like the film.[7]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times felt that the film was so overstuffed that it was an "anthology" held together by "one of those high-voltage Al Pacino performances that's so sure of itself we hesitate to demur." He concluded, "The closing courtroom scenes are constructed as a machine to make the audience cheer, and the machine works."[17]
Vincent Canby of The New York Times described the general hysteria of the actors as if they had been directed to play "the last act of Three Men on a Horse". He calls Pacino's character "a hyperventilating idiot" and speculates that everyone in the film has "such low thresholds of emotional distress that I wouldn't trust one of them to see 'The Sound of Music' unless accompanied by a parent or adult guardian."[18]
Variety said that the film's blend of comedy and drama was unsuccessful but not incompetent.[19]
One critic mused that it was as "commercial as a 60-second K-tel ad and as utterly devoid of substance as a lawyer's opening statement."[20]
The Boston Globe lamented the film's inability to be a legal version of Catch-22 and faulted the director. "'...And Justice For All' spills its potential drama all over the screen and Jewison never stops to clean up the mess."[22]
The film has been read as a commentary on the outsider status of Jews in the WASP-dominated judicial system.[23] The opening juxtaposition of the majestic courthouse, with grubby interiors and children mangling the Pledge of Allegiance, sets the film's thesis: "the promise of law is at worst superficial and at best idealistic, nearly impossible to experience or achieve".[24][25]
William Schoell pointed to Kirkland's reaction to Agee's suicide as one of the "strongest scenes Pacino has ever played", and gives the actor credit for "triumphing over an impossible script".[26] Brian W. Fairbanks also called the film's screenplay "overly contrived".[27]
Kirkland's opening statement during the film's climax contains its most famous moment, including the outburst, "You're out of order! You're out of order! The whole trial is out of order! They're out of order!"
^Kiely, John. "Toronto Film Festival Honors Hometown Boy", Kitchener-Waterloo Record. September 15, 1979. 62.
^Markell, Cecille. "And No Justice for Al Pacino", Jewish Advocate. December 6, 1979. A9.
^Blowen, Michael. "Pacino can't rescue 'Justice For All'", Boston Globe. October 20, 1979.
^Helfgott, Leonard M. “Crossing Over: Class, Race, and Ethnicity in the Baltimore Films of Barry Levinson.” Wealth and Poverty in Jewish Tradition, edited by Leonard J. Greenspoon, Purdue University Press, 2015. 249.
^Silbey, Jessica M. The Subjects of Trial Films. PhD., University of Michigan, 1999. 148.
^ abChamplin, Charles. "'Justice' Approaches the Bench-Skeptically: Pacino Takes on 'Justice' System." Los Angeles Times. Oct 14, 1979, pp. 1-2.
