StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Bluebell Alcock Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Ugljesa Ijacic Sidney Lumet won me over with 12 Angry Men, The Network and most of all, with a breathtaking masterpiece Dog Day Afternoon. However, the movie I'll say a couple of sentences about here, his late-career favorite, seems to be like those unplanned gems where things just magically fall in place..Paul Newman plays Frank Galvin, a worn-out attorney having been presented with a new case, that possibly could revive his life and career. Along with Jack Warden as his mentor and friend, James Mason as an courthouse opponent, Milo O'Shea as judge and Charlotte Rampling as Frank's lover, all of them are utterly convincing and believable and give this film top-notch cast..Some allegedly small script details play such a huge part in differentiating this movie from a tons of movies with a similar subject. You witness Lumet magic on screen. I hope to get a chance to see the movie in a proper setting, in cinema..

willowwear00 I've loved this movie since I saw it when it came out, for all the reasons and more that people have written here. Newman at his best. James Mason even better. Great plot. Both the best law movie AND the best medicine movie.But I write here now because of a dinner conversation held earlier today in which I noted that every great movie has dozens of really negative reviews. So we went to GODFATHER, ET, GONE WITH THE WIND, SHAWSHANK, even SINGING IN THE RAIN, and sure enough there are dozens of negative reviews. Sometime later I remembered this movie and went to the reviews to see how it fared: only 2 negative reviews. Maybe the best reviewed movie on IMDb, and well deserved.

HotToastyRag The Verdict is what The Color of Money should have been. In The Color of Money, Paul Newman plays an old hustler who used to be young and famous. He trains and teaches a young upstart, but it was hardly an interesting storyline. Wouldn't it have been a more captivating plot if he used to be young and famous, and now, he's washed up, playing the small time again and struggling with an alcohol problem? I think so.In The Verdict, Paul Newman plays a lawyer who once had a future in a prestigious law firm. Now, he's a washed up alcoholic, chasing ambulances for clients. He's given one last chance to bring a big case to court, but can he get and keep his act together and win? With a running time of over two hours, it feels a little slow. But courtroom dramas can be notoriously slow, especially in the 80s, so it's not the end of the world. It's also a little predictable, but if you like Paul Newman or stories about underdogs, definitely give it a chance.

joe-pearce-1 Quite honestly, I can't understand the quibbling exhibited here by some of the other reviewers. To me, this is just about a perfect movie, achieving exactly what it sets out to do, with everything in it and about it insuring the perfection of that achievement. Some say it is too slow, but this is the kind of story that has to be told slowly, as its main subject is not so much the legal case involved, but the step-by-step reemergence of a conscience that may lead to the reclamation of a human life and career from a decade or more of sheer mediocrity-cum-failure. The screenplay and direction are all of a piece, and they never veer off into cheap emotion, theatrics, violence, hyped-up speed or whatever. Lumet's direction is perfect, but it always is, and David Mamet's screenplay is a marvel of slow and painstaking discovery, both of salient story facts and of the characters' own strengths, weaknesses, fears and even concealed self-loathing (one gets the last not only in Newman's performance, but even in the short speech James Mason's character makes when justifying his and his firm's slimy methods). Which brings us to the acting, and this is really the primary reason to see this film, maybe even over and over again (I've seen it about 7 or 8 times since it first came out in 1982, each time with even more enjoyment and appreciation). Although the characters are just disparate enough to not rise to the level of an ensemble, this is film ensemble acting at its best. There is not a performance in the film that is not a stand-out. Others have already called this Newman's greatest film performance, and it well may be, but given so many superb acting jobs over almost 50 years, it may be hard to segregate any one of them as his best. But it is quietly yet grandly superb throughout. Mason's upper class but still somewhat seedy opposing attorney is as fine a thing as he ever did on screen, yet again, he did so much that even a thing as fine as this is simply running against self-competition! Jack Warden, among the most underrated actors of his time, equals them in his own way, even if in the kind of typically gruff and rough-and-ready role that was his trademark. The enigmatic performance of Charlotte Rampling as Newman's new - and maybe first in many years - love interest, comes into its own when certain hidden plot elements emerge towards the end of the film. Milo O'Shea is hatefully magnificent as the Judge, an almost too realistic near-parody of the kind of Boston Irish semi-political hack who does mean and nasty things and probably hits the Confessional once a month to be absolved of having done them. Binns is on the fence as the head of the Archdiocese, a Cardinal who seems to want to act justly, yet is willing to accede to what he intuits are some pretty unsavory methods used by his defense team, this in order to protect the reputation of the Archdiocese. Arguably the two best performances in the film are in minor roles, with Julie Bavasso (God, what an underrated actress for decades) as an older nurse who seems frightened to death of what she has witnessed in her job, and is now unwilling to speak of it to anyone, most particularly to Newman's plaintiff's attorney, finally breaking her reserve only to call him and all other members of the legal profession "whores". (In this story, it's hard to disagree with her.) And finally there is a gorgeous near-cameo appearance by Lindsay Crouse (Mamet's wife) as the missing operating room witness, whose life and career have been substantially ruined by the combined medical establishment, hospital and Archdiocese. For all practical purposes, her five minutes or so on the witness stand practically steals the acting honors in this film, a feat that would seem manifestly impossible given what I have written to this point. I would also call your attention to Mamet's incredibly well-written circumlocutionary closing argument for the plaintiffs, even more incredibly delivered by Newman in a long one-shot camera take that starts to the right of the judge's bench and behind the jury with Newman sitting silently in the distance, takes in the entire slow and deliberate speech as he makes his way up to face the jury, stays on him throughout, and then follows him over the jury's heads as he returns to his seat, now in close-up as the scene fades out. It doesn't call attention to itself, but it is in the realm of what we might expect from Welles or Hitchcock in their very best innovative moments. A wonderful film in every conceivable way!