The Advocate (1993) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski) and Tuna

Two thumbs up. If this is your type of film, it's a good one.

Scoop's comments in white.

This is a cynical look at human nature, as filtered through France in the Dark Ages.

Colin Firth plays a brilliant lawyer who tires of the politicking and compromises necessary to practice in Paris, so he decides to move to a small town, where he can build an estate which he could not afford in Paris, and thus enjoy the simple country life in a stress-free life of simple property adjudications and domestic disputes.

It doesn't quite work out that way. He finds out that the small town is filled with as many deals and intrigues as Paris, the crimes are just as horrifying as in the city, and everything is further complicated by the almost unchecked power of the local baron. After he has been in town for only a short while, Firth is asked to defend a pig who has been accused of murdering a young boy. In the law of that place and time, an animal could be held responsible for criminal acts, and could be sent to the gallows like a man.

The lawyer is embroiled in a complex controversy. He is in love with the gypsy woman who owns the pig, and the animal represents not only food to the gypsies, but their rights as citizens, because they know for a fact that the pig was tethered while the crime was committed. Therefore, Firth is under immense pressure to defend the pig and set it free. On the other hand, the absolute authority of the baron cannot be challenged, and the baron wants the pig to be found guilty, for his own dark reasons related to the real fate of the murdered boy. Firth has to figure out a solution that will satisfy all parties.

It's an interesting movie, written for intellectuals, comparable to the plays of Robert Bolt or James Goldman in that it uses a long bygone time as a window through which we may view as much about our times and nature as theirs -  if there truly is any meaningful difference. Although the film is not played out as a comedy, the dialogue is constructed to make use of situational irony, thus revealing additional and different attitudes than the ones shown ostensibly. Thus, there is nothing remotely funny about the scene in which a man and his she-ass are to be hanged for copulation with one another, yet the situation is so ludicrous, and the donkey seems so out of place on the gallows with a noose around her neck, that the humor is evident, although it is never betrayed by the tone. The funniest thing in the entire film is when the hanging is stopped by a last-minute reprieve. At first it seems like the typical movie cliché, a messenger bearing a pardon from the bishop which attests to the good character of the accused. Unfortunately for the man, this is no cliché. The verbiage in the pardon is referring to the good character of the donkey, so she is freed while the man's execution continues.

I wonder why Colin Firth didn't ever become a bigger international star. He had the talent. He had the looks. I've liked him in everything he's been in. I guess his personality lacked the kind of pizzazz necessary to promote himself properly for the all-important American market, and every time he was in a movie that succeeded in America (Shakespeare in Love, Bridget Jones's Diary, e.g.), he had some kind of non-charismatic role which blended him into the background.

Tuna's comments in yellow:

I always love courtroom dramas, and this is a good one.

The film is everything Scoopy said it was, and goes into fairly intricate detail as to how the upper classes use the superstition of the masses to hide their price fixing, how the clergy seduces "Good wives" in the confessional, and even goes a long way towards explaining the belief in witchcraft and magic so common with the peasants. Best of all, it packages all of the main plot, and all of the motivations and beliefs of each segment of society, but it does it without ruining what is a very good yarn.