The Star Chamber

    The Star Chamber
    1983

    Synopsis

    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.

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    Cast

    • Michael DouglasSteven Hardin
    • Hal HolbrookBenjamin Caulfield
    • Yaphet KottoDetective Harry Lowes
    • Sharon GlessEmily Hardin
    • James B. SikkingDr. Harold Lewin
    • Joe RegalbutoArthur Cooms
    • Don CalfaLawrence Monk
    • John DiSantiDetective James Wickman
    • DeWayne JessieStanley Flowers
    • Jack KehoeHingle

    Recommendations

    • 80

      Washington Post

      It's a beautifully composed and tautly engineered production, a model of trim and attractive genre moviemaking. This movie looks marvelous. Hyams and his cinematographer, Richard Hannah, seem to be experimenting with some form of enhanced lighting that gives the color images extraordinary vividness, a very fine grain combined with a sharp, hard-edged focus that produces a far more expressive three-dimensional illusion than 3-D. The effect is especially breathtaking. [5 Aug 1983, p.C6]
    • 80

      Washington Post

      Yaphet Kotto, as L.A.P.D. Detective Harry Lowes, and Larry Hankin, as his partner, pull the bench out from under the rest of the players. Show-stealing is their only crime -- they add the necessary guts and good humor to bring the Star Chamber down to earth. [5 Aug 1983, p.17]
    • 80

      Newsweek

      If this gives the impression that The Star Chamber is a contemplative movie, forget it. It's a social tract in the classic Hollywood style -- viscera first. The issues are laid out in the most hyperbolic fashion and resolved by sheer melodrama -- a wild chase, a race against the clock, a shoot-out. On these gut-level terms, The Star Chamber is utterly gripping. Supported by an excellent cast and very stylish cinematography, Hyams sustains the tension from start to finish, no matter how preposterous the plotting becomes. [15 Aug 1983, p.64]
    • 70

      Variety

      Getting to this point in the film, there’s a pleasure in rediscovering intelligent dialog, ably provided by Hyams and Roderick Taylor. But the talk is haunted by concern that this intellectual morass cannot be solved within the confines of cinema.
    • 60

      TV Guide Magazine

      Taut, if occasionally silly, the film is hampered by ideological confusion. Director Peter Hyams doesn't seem to know if he's making a reactionary Death Wish" clone or a liberal problem film.
    • 60

      The New York Times

      It is a great disappointment, halfway into the movie, to find The Star Chamber so far off the track that its credibility almost entirely disappears...The Star Chamber has a well- meaning urgency, and it is an entertaining film even when it becomes so thoroughly misguided.
    • 50

      Chicago Sun-Times

      The Star Chamber works brilliantly until it locks into a plot. Then it stops dancing and starts marching.
    • 50

      Time Out

      Just as Douglas discovers that he can go only so far along the extra-judicial path, so the film's line of reasoning twists part-way, falters, then ties itself into tangled and inconclusive knots.