Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Griff Lees Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

gavin6942 Wealthy Sunny von Bülow (Glenn Close) lies brain-dead, husband Claus (Jeremy Irons) guilty of attempted murder; but he says he is innocent and hires Alan Dershowitz (Ron Silver) for his appeal.This film, based more or less on a true story, brings up one of those age-old legal ethics questions. Is morality and legality the same? Not at all. A person, no matter how strange or despicable, deserves the best defense. But if someone is found innocent, that does not automatically make them morally innocent. (And here we never quite know if Claus is an attempted killer or just does not care.) Jeremy Irons excels as always, and Glenn Close may have found her best role: being in a coma. She has never been good at anything else. And Ron Silver? Heck, he even made a soul-sucking loser like Dershowitz come across as a fascinating guy.

luke-a-mcgowan Reversal of Fortune is a less than thrilling, less than mysterious murder-mystery film. In isolation from the true story that inspired it, it holds very low impact and has not aged well in 25 years.Ron Silver is the film's strongest asset as Alan Dershowitz. He is the one who should have eaten up the accolades, not Jeremy Irons. His long philosophical rants are brilliant and gives us a very good understanding of Dershowitz as a thinker and a person in only a brief window of time. Glenn Close is also very impressive, shining in a very simple role. As for Irons, he has his moments - a smile here, a look there - that convey his talent, but for the overwhelming majority of time he isn't more than just a British gentleman. His performance in Eragon was more compelling than this. He is neither nuanced, nor malevolent, nary a shade on Primal Fear's Aaron Stampler or The Lincoln Lawyer's Louis Roulet. He is as dry as a bone, and to think that this film took the Academy Award for Best Actor which could have instead gone to James Caan for Misery or Ray Liotta for Goodfellas (neither of whom was even nominated) is just plain bizarre.The film is fairly predictable and unfolds pretty much as you'd think. It cuts away from the most exciting moments (the courtroom scenes) and even teases us with a far more exciting story (the two black brothers on death row).There's a fair bit of watchability here, which salvages an all right score, but there's a plethora of better films of this nature out there, and you should go an see them first.

namashi_1 Adapted from the 1985 book Reversal of Fortune: Inside the von Bülow Case, written by law professor Alan Dershowitz, 'Reversal Of Fortune' is a superb film! Barbet Schroeder directs this Murder-Mystery in an atmosphere that has potential and a lot to explain.It recounts the true story of the unexplained coma of socialite Sunny von Bülow, the subsequent attempted murder trial, and the eventual acquittal of her husband, Claus von Bülow, who had Dershowitz acting as his defense. As a cinematic experience, it's a must watch. The most freaky part is that it's a true incident.. the poor Sunny died few years back! Claus, on the other-hand is still alive.Moving on, coming to the high-points of this film: Schroeder's direction is fantastic. He makes every move neatly. Luciano Tovoli's Cinematography is outstanding! He captures each frame with style. Acting wise, Jeremy Irons is dignified in a role that won him the Academy-Award for Best Actor! Glenn Close is terrific. The legendary actress steals the show with a haunting performance. Ron Silver is hugely effective. Felicity Huffman, in a brief role, is perfect.This true story is a must watch... it's one cinematic experience! Thumbs Up!

timmy_501 All I knew that it was a courtroom drama of some type. Thus I was pleasantly surprised that it isn't really courtroom bound; the film consists mostly of famous lawyer Alan Dershowitz working on his latest case which the audience is familiarized with through the generous use of flashbacks. The film is concerned with a rich woman who is in a coma following an overdose of some kind. Her less wealthy husband has already been convicted of her murder and it's up to Dershowitz and his crew of student aides to overturn this conviction in a higher court.The film is diverting enough not to be a drag but it isn't particularly memorable. The main flaw is the narration from the comatose woman that adds nothing and doesn't mesh with the sober tone of the rest of the film. The apparent purpose of this framing narration is to give the victim (and actress Glenn Close) more screen time but this throws off the pacing in a few spots. Still, the film seems to do a fairly good job of covering the facts