By Josh Hornbeck
Sidney Lumet is one of the truly great film directors working today. Beginning his career in 1948 directing for television, Lumet went on to direct such varied classics as 12 Angry Men, Network, The Wiz, Serpico, and Dog Day Afternoon. His shots are confident and precise, his pacing deliberate and thoughtful. He has been able to pull amazing performances from actors as diverse as Al Pacino, Henry Fonda, Faye Dunaway, Robert Duvall, and Andy Garcia. He moves effortlessly between drama, satire, comedy, thriller, and musical. In his latest film, Find Me Guilty, Lumet is able to pull a tragically comedic performance out of the normally dull and wooden Vin Diesel, playing the real-life small time gangster Jackie DiNorscio.
To Jackie, family means everything. He loves his friends and, even when they to try to whack him, he would do anything for them. After an undercover operative arrests him for dealing drugs, Jackie finds himself serving a thirty-year sentence. The DA leans on him to testify against his friends in the upcoming RICO trial they’ve all been indicted under. But Jackie won’t bite. He’d never “rat” on his friends. After all, he loves them and they love him. Jackie decides instead to face the prospect of even more jail time and sit in the court with his friends as they all attempt to defy the government’s case. While the nearly thirty other defendants each have lawyers of their own, Jackie decides to represent himself. After all, if his last lawyer couldn’t get him anything better than thirty years, Jackie couldn’t do worse himself, right? So Jackie, with the advice of one of the few friendly lawyers in the room, cross examines witnesses and prepares statements, much to the chagrin of the other defendants and the overzealous DA, at times providing invaluable insight, and at other times making a “mockery” of the judicial system.
Much of the script was taken from the actual courtroom transcripts. If the film hadn’t mentioned this in its preface, the movie would have seemed even more unlikely than it already does. Lumet resists the urge to play up the inherent comedy. It could easily have become another My Cousin Vinny in the wrong hands. However, Lumet’s direction is so subtle and self-assured that the film feels grounded, even in the midst of Jackie’s most outrageous antics. This grounding allows Diesel to give the performance of his career. Again, the actor portraying Jackie could very easily have fallen into the trap of playing him strictly for laughs, but instead Diesel plays him with sympathy and warmth. He really does love his friends, and even though they look at him as a clown and a buffoon at best, he still does all he can for them. Diesel gives us a performance that us surprisingly heartbreaking.
The film’s real problem is that fact that it has us rooting for the villains. Sure, the DA may be on the side of truth and justice, but he’s a bit pretentious and full of himself. His smug assurance and his resolve to win the case no matter what leaves us, as an audience, hoping and praying for his downfall. Jackie is such a sweet and a sincere gangster that we want him to be able to prove himself to the rest of his mafia pals. We want his closing arguments to get the others off the hook. Lumet tries to remind us that these are not good men, but all such reminders fall flat in the face of the film’s obvious sympathies to Jackie and others. “Because of these men,” the DA tells his legal team, “everything in this city costs more. Oh yeah, and they kill people from time to time, too.” But Lumet never shows us their propensities toward violence. In fact, the film’s only violence character is Jackie’s cousin – the main witness in the prosecution’s case.
The film’s relative morality is troubling, just as it’s troubling to see the same relativity creep into our culture. In a film like The Godfather, the entire course of the film takes places inside the closed world of mafia dons. Even police officers and judges were in league with the mafia family. Here we aren't presented with a closed society. Here, there is an obvious right and there is an obvious wrong. But because Jackie is such a nice guy, we want him to win the case instead of the ambitious DA. We can see this same relative morality throughout our culture and even in our own lives. Our boss is a jerk so we’ll only really work hard when they’re looking over our shoulder. Speed limits are just a rough guide, so we’ll drive at whatever speed we want. The government takes enough of our money anyway, so we’ll forget to mention a large monetary gift that came our way. The film simply underlines a dangerous attitude that, if taken to its logical conclusion, lets everyone do whatever they want, as long as they think it’s okay.
Jackie’s most honorable trait is his loyalty. Sure, he’s a drug dealer and a thug, but if you’re family, there isn’t anything he wouldn’t do for you. In his closing remarks he tells the jury, “If you have to find anyone guilty, find me guilty, but not my friends.” His drugged-out cousin attempts to murder him in his sleep, but still Jackie refuses to tell the police who the shooter was. “My eyes were closed,” he says. “I love you,” is his mantra, and even when his friends get tired of hearing it, he stills says it and shows he means it through every fiber of his being.
Love and loyalty are such important concepts for us to grasp. The culture does a good job of keeping us separate and isolated. American individualism has killed much of the bands of loyalty that should keep us connected with family and friends. It’s funny that it takes us a film about gangsters and killers to remind us of that importance. Sometimes this loyalty means supporting your friends through thick and thin. Sometimes, like we see when Jackie refuses to give his cousin money because he’ll just spend it on drugs, loyalty is about saying no to our friends and family, helping them find what is best for their lives, helping them make better choices.
What keeps Find Me Guilty from being a fully amoral celebration of relativity is the simple fact that Jackie’s loyalty – while strong – is sadly misplaced. A few of his other friends may echo his sentiments, but most of them see him as a joke. The head of the family is willing to kill Jackie if it looks like he’s going to ruin the case. He won’t even let Jackie eat with the others during the trial’s lunch-breaks. Still, Jackie shows unwavering devotion. In the end, when they have won the case, we see the prison guards hauling Jackie back to prison while the rest of the defendants celebrate as free men. From a distance, they shout out, “We love you Jackie!” They continue on with their celebration, leaving Jackie alone and isolated. As Jackie returns to his cell, the prisoners’ cheers may sound full of life and joy, but it feels empty and hollow.
How often do we find that we have given our loyalty to something or someone who betrayed us in the end? We place all our trust, all our hope in the things of this world. We rely on our money and our financial independence. We rely on relationships to define us and give us our meaning and value. We think our sin is going to be an aide and comfort. In the end, these things leave us alone, empty and bankrupt. It’s important to be loyal to our friends, to support our family, but even these very good things shouldn’t captivate our full attention. Really, our loyalty belongs to God. To Christ. He’s the only one who won’t betray us or abandon us. He’s the only one who will never fail us.
There is frequent profanity throughout the film. The language is harsh and explicit, and there are some sexually explicit conversations. It’s shocking every once in a while, but as most of the dialogue is taken directly from the court transcripts, it’s also fairly accurate.
The film’s violence is brief and clumsy, more humorous than disturbing, but is still a little bloody.
There is one moment of strong sexual content as Jackie’s ex-wife visits him in prison and the two begin to make overtures toward rekindling their long-dead relationship. It does show us that Jackie has begun grow and change a little.
(Posted 07/19/2006)
