Rarely has a movie as morally questionable as “Find Me Guilty” been as much fun to watch.
Sidney Lumet’s new film takes on the true story of Jack DiNorscio, a henchman in the Lucchese crime family, during a legendary trial in the late 1980s. A group of Mafia members were tried by the U.S. government at the same time, and the colorful DiNorscio fired his lawyer and represented himself in court.
During a grueling two-year trial, DiNorscio’s wacky approach to the law (“I’m not a gangster, I’m a gagster,” he repeats in the movie) made the legal process a comedy of errors. He may have been a fool, but there’s a good chance he was crazy like a fox.
Lumet sets the majority of the film in the courtroom, and uses some of the actual trial transcripts for dialogue. In a casting coup, he’s got Vin Diesel, the brawny “XXX” action star, as the loose-limbed, back-slapping DiNorscio.
Diesel sparkles in the role. His DiNorscio has a puppydog neediness (he’s always talking about his deep love for his fellow goombahs) and a sly command of the courtroom. Even his toupee gives a fine performance.
Diesel and Lumet make this guy hugely enjoyable, and that’s the questionable part. There’s one scene where the D.A. (Linus Roache) rants about that fact that everybody in the courtroom is being charmed by DiNorscio (“What is wrong with these people?”). After all, this is a gangster responsible for theft and violence, a corrupt individual keeping a corrupt system afloat.
But that’s just one scene, and in most of the rest of the film we’re encouraged to see the D.A. as a weasel. Sidney Lumet, now over 80, is a veteran with some terrific movies to his credit, including “Dog Day Afternoon” and “The Verdict.” But Lumet has always had a tendency to stack the deck against certain characters in favor of others, and “Find Me Guilty” has a typical lack of subtlety.
Lumet certainly knows how to do courtroom scenes, though. “Find Me Guilty” has a refreshing lack of technical tricks or dazzle; many dialogue scenes play themselves out in longshots, where we get to watch the actors move around the set, as though they were in a play. The pacing, too, is civilized without being pokey.
Peter Dinklage, the little-man actor from “The Station Agent,” is excellent as a defense attorney, Alex Rocco (Moe Greene from “The Godfather”) just right as a crime boss, and Ron Silver suitably exasperated as the judge.
“Find Me Guilty” comes close to turning thugs and hoodlums into amiable heroes. If you compare it with “The Sopranos,” where black comedy sits side-by-side with the harsh consequences of criminal life, the film looks especially lightweight. What an interesting film it might have been to view the story from the perspective of the district attorney: witnessing a world in which bad people keep getting off scot-free because they’re likable. That’s a much more urgent subject for our times.
“Find Me Guilty” HHH
Good fun: A hugely entertaining account of the late-1980s trial of mobsters in the Lucchese family, notably Jack DiNorscio (Vin Diesel), whose courtroom antics disrupted the epic trial.
Rated: R for language, violence.
Now showing: Alderwood mall, Galaxy 12, Meridian 16, Metro, Woodinville 12
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