Film

Criminal Law

Name: Criminal Law
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Released: 1989
Cast: Gary Oldman, Kevin Bacon, Tess Harper, Karen Young, Joe Don Baker

A Boston lawyer springs a brutal murderer on a legal technicality, then immediately takes his case again—this time secretly building evidence to convict him. Gary Oldman and Kevin Bacon prowl around each other in a taut psychological thriller that's less about courtroom procedure than about obsession, guilt, and the price of winning at any cost. Lean, mean, and deeply '80s.

TMDb rating

2.8

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Both films are built on the idea that obsession with a guilty man corrupts the pursuer as much as the pursued. In Criminal Law, Oldman's lawyer becomes as morally diseased as Bacon's killer. Lang's film invented that scenario.

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Anatomy of a Murder1959

A small-town lawyer defends a man accused of killing his wife's rapist. Methodical, principled, and genuinely moving—it's about the legal system's ability to find truth, not obscure it, which makes it the moral inverse of Criminal Law.

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Tom Cruise as a young lawyer hired by a prestigious firm that turns out to be mob-connected. The paranoia builds methodically as he realizes he's trapped, and the moral calculations get darker at every turn.

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