Review – The Star Chamber

Apparently the only thing in the world worse than too little justice is too much of the stuff. The idea here is that a small cabal of judges grow weary of watching criminal defendants walk free on technicalities. So they set up a “star chamber.” Anyone found guilty by the group – after escaping punishment by the regular legal system – is murdered by specially-hired hit men. It’s an intriguing concept. Unfortunately it gets mired in a lot of stiff sentimentality. The father of a murdered child is one of the most prominent supporting characters. And the conspiracy doesn’t go south until the protagonist (Michael Douglas) determines that a couple of guys he brought before the chamber were actually innocent (at least of the crime for which the group sentenced them). I know that moral ambiguity isn’t one of Hollywood’s strong points, but a little less simple-minded approach would have done this picture a world of good. Mildly amusing