The O-town Scene

Vintage Video by Sam Benedict ‘The Star Chamber,’ 1983, starring Michael Douglas “And then somebody said the strangest thing. He said ‘We’re the goddamn law.’ Think about it. We are,” the Honourable Benjamin Caulfield relates, pointing a finger to highlight his hideous “Aha! Moment.” It’s the kind of positive, police-state thinking that made Judge Dredd such a winner in life (not necessarily at the box office). But for junior judge Steven Hardin (Michael Douglas), it’s secret society story time. Uncle Ben is sharing the origins of his highly illegal Justice League with Steven, who’s about to receive a cordially implicating invite. But this isn’t how “The Star Chamber” begins. It opens with an up-to-the-1983-minute newscast, drawing us into the reality of a story that, refreshingly, takes time to take shape. “Star” is not afraid to scatter its separate points of light, or let them burn a bit slowly before any kind of constellation comes into view. We’re walked along its crime-scene-to-courtroom beat, one which a TV franchise like “Law & Order” perhaps some credit. Plot threads are allowed to stretch and settle before they’re woven together or drawn taut. One case high on “Chamber”’s complex docket is the mys- terious suicide of Judge Jim Culhane (restroom edition). Sitting through a fancy dinner in his own honor, Culhane (Sheldon Feldner) excuses himself, all while a colleague praises him at the podium. In an apparent indictment of his friend’s endless speech, he retires to the little judge’s room, where he can at last ring in his lifetime achievement award with a gunshot through the back of his head. It’s the way we all feel about awards shows, to be sure, but writer/director Peter Hyams and Roderick Taylor (story and screenplay) have served up an intriguing riddle right from the start, which the story then sets out to solve. “Chamber” charts Steven Hardin’s strange journey _ from mounting moral out- rage that manages to approach Culhane’s mysterious, more bullet-embedded state of mind. You’ve got to get up mighty early in the a.m. to keep up with Hyams and Taylor; they’ve got us pulling a sunrise shift with seasoned detectives Mackay (Dick Anthony Williams) and Wiggan, who find themselves in a breathless (and breathtak- ingly well-filmed) chase after a man out for an aggressively early morning stroll, all before comically trying to outwit a trash can (wrapped up in investigative red tape). The escap- ing suspect’s deposited possible evidence there on his way to home base. “Our own court of last resort,” a rhyming moniker the circle of gavel-happy gangsters must have come up with while free-styling in the Judge’s Lounge. Their challenge entails fishing it out without tripping personal-privacy alarms. At last, they feel the wisdom of Oscar the Grouch descend upon them like a dumpster full of forensic bricks. The partners retrieve a thoroughly unsanitary handgun, and link it to a series of recent murders. When Cooms (Joe Regalbuto) and Monk (Don Calfa), a two- some of twitching, bug-eyed goons (given to gritty exclama- tions like “Be Cool!” And “He’s jivin’ us, man!”) walk on a child-killing charge, Hardin’s at his absolute wit’s end. He’s irrationally ripe for scooting on over to the dark side of the bench. Steven presses Ben about a radically activist option the crafty curmudgeon keeps dropping cryptic little hints about. Caulfield carefully ushers him into what he calls “our own court of last resort,” a rhyming moniker the circle of gavel- happy gangsters must have come up with while free-styling in the Judge’s Lounge. Like some sinister New York City apartment listing, Jim Culhane’s self-administered death penalty has opened up what the crew calls “a vacancy,” and Hardin is to be their infusion of fresh, boiling blood, a blue-chip rookie prospect. The eight angry men (and one woman) meet in a green-shaded, lamp-lit study, as if about to engage in an insanely high-stakes game of Crazy Eights. There, the law- knowing outlaws eagerly take turns presenting their personal pet projects to a support group of exceedingly sympathetic peers. Tall tales of “clearly” guilty suspects who’ve suppos- edly slithered through the legal system’s labyrinth of cracks abound. The Superior Court Judges (moonlighting as Supreme Beings) take solemn, speedy votes. They’ve ruled themselves judge, jury and executioner by buffered proxy. A roving gunman (Keith Buckley) serves as their traveling guillotine, fulfilling “sentences” via the easy listening method of muffled silencer (“Chamber”’s unsuspect- ing suspects are prone to indulging in ’80s ills: drugs, booze and “degenerate” punk-rock music). The club is chillingly unanimous when it comes to capital punishment, as none of the members even entertains the con- cept of offering their summer homes or spacious basements as minimum security correctional facilities for captured suspects _ despite the tremendous “Odd Couple”-esque sitcom spin- off potential there. Hardin’s “hardness” as a satin-mumu-ed mobster is tested straight away, and he signs off on an execution or two. “I feel you pulling away from me,” his wife Emily (Sharon Gless) laments in their unlit bedroom, even as Steven keeps her in the dark. Hollywood writing has ESP informing her that it’s not another woman (not even Glenn Close); she has no way of knowing that her husband’s engaging in sexless, vengefully judgmental nine-somes every few freaky nights. Gless does everything humanly possible to humanize her “smart, sup- portive spouse” role. Death-wishing upon a “Star,” Steven steps up to the plate, and gets the criminally- unfunny comedy team of Cooms ‘n’ Monk scheduled to get discreetly smoked. It’s just his corrupt luck, however, to learn that the wiry, clammy pair are in fact not guilty. The head-strong Hardin thought he was striking a blow against a Byzan- tine system, but his movie proves to be one heck of a counter-puncher, delivering a sharp jab to the trend of the vigilante movie as it does so. A hard-headed Hardin belatedly “gets” it: Jurists Should Just Say No to Joining Death-Dealing Cabals. Michael Douglas stakes his claim here as the king of the morally compromised, contro- versial protagonist. He’s not necessarily the convict in pris- on for a crime he didn’t com- mit _ rather, he’s the judge who self-righteously puts out a hit on said suspects and then finally, flip-floppingly re- grets it. Racing to overtake his own sluggish learning curve, he finds himself desperately hoping to “pull a Homer,” as it were, hastening to clean up an upper-middle-class mess of his own making. The movie does a solid job of not trying to turn Hardin into too much of an action hero, remaining a civilian’s suspense picture that pretty much knows its limits. By “Chamber”’s end, Steven Hardin’s career is very likely kaput, but the formula for the Michael Douglas vehicle is getting well off the ground. Grade: B July 7, 2011 O-Town Scene 7

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