Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in Chicago, plus articles, trailers and more

 

I, the Jury (1981)

Director: Richard T Heffron

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Apart from Aldrich's extraordinary Kiss Me Deadly, the blood-and-guts thrillers of Mickey Spillane have not translated well to cinema. This adaptation delivers more sex and violence than ever before, and Assante plays Mike Hammer in a shambling Italian style, pleasingly reminiscent of De Niro in Mean Streets. But (possibly because Larry Cohen was replaced as director after a week) the film soon becomes repetitious, lacking the overall atmosphere of paranoia that makes Spillane's fictions bearable, and dwelling in a nauseating way (even by the standards of its source material) on sadistic sexual violence. The updated plot concerns sex clinics, post-Watergate cover-ups, and such a multitude of bad guys that even Hammer is only able to despatch about eighty of them. But the modern references just get in the way: as with Ian Fleming, an authentic Spillane adaptation would have to be set in the hysterical atmosphere of the Cold War.

Author: DP 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Cast & crew

Director: Richard T Heffron

Producer: Robert H Solo

Cast: Armand Assante, Barbara Carrera, Laurene Landon, Alan King, Geoffrey Lewis, Paul Sorvino, Judson Scott full cast

Genre(s): Thrillers

Duration: 111 mins


Features

Do overs!

Do overs!

After Race to Witch Mountain, what should Disney remake next?

Gray's anatomy

James Gray wants to push buttons—again.

The next big thing?

Gigantic Releasing tries to rethink indie distribution…without movie theaters.

Red Diva: Lyubov Orlova, First Lady of Soviet Cinema

So you think you can dance, comrade?

Puppet master

Coraline director Henry Selick takes stop-motion animation into 3-D.

Socratic method

Laurent Cantet's approach on the set matches the message of his film.

Wander woman

Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy puts a Bush-era spin on the road movie.

Oscars

Read our interviews with the nominees, our reviews of the nominated films and more.