I remember watching this film twice as a kid, I haven't seen it since. Ernest Tidyman wrote the screenplay for it (he is the same guy who wrote The French Connection). LeVar Burton made his debut as Kunta Kinte in Roots (what a great way to start your career). He said at the time that this was the most challenging role imaginable, playing a deaf and dumb young man accused of murder. Donald Lang is a 20 year old who lives with his siblings and works on the loading docks, he is charged with murdering a prostitue. Lowell Myers is a deaf lawyer who takes on his case. Paul Sorvino is an excellent actor who always delivers and he takes on this challenging role as well. This movie makes it out like there is evidence that Donald Lang was innocent and didn't kill the hooker Ernestine Myers. A woman tells his lawyer that she heard Myers having an argument in the alley where she was murdered with another man and she heard his voice! Lang is taken back to the alley where she was killed and "acts out" a scene where he fights with another man who was the real killer. Sorvino makes an excellent speech at the conclusion where he talks about how a deaf mute is still entitled to the same rights as everyone else. He points out how Charlie Chaplin could make an audience laugh and cry and not use one single word. Its a great speech that tugs at your heartstrings its true, but folks I need to point out something. Every time Hollywood makes a film about a real life murder case, they always make it out like the criminal in question was INNOCENT! Why in the hell do they do this? Is Hollywood full of bleeding heart liberals who pee their pants every time someone is accused of a crime and God forbid if they are poor or African American! Evil comes in all colors and Donald Lang was evil and he was GUILTY! Five years after the murder of Ernestine Myers he was released from the asylum. Shortly afterwards, there was another woman who was murdered and he was seen leaving a bar with her. This time, there was overwhelming physical evidence that Lang was the killer and he was sent to prison for the rest of his life. If our legal system worked the way it should, this woman needn't have died. Donald Lang really was a killer and no amount of moralizing by Hollywood can change that cold hard fact. This film sort of reminded me of The Hurricane about Rubin Carter. It is a well made film with fine actors, but at the same time you have to take it with a grain of salt folks because the murdering son of a bitch really did it! CASE CLOSED!!!!!
