An absolutely wretched movie. I caught the first twenty minutes of this on the Fox Movie Channel, and was so intrigued that I rushed out and rented it last night, after finishing a 3 1/2 year project.<br /><br />Here are 90 minutes of my life I would love to have back. The film has a splendid cast... Michael Douglas, Hal Holbook, James B. Sikking, Sharon Gless (in a thankless role). It begins intriguingly, like a half-breed of 'The Parallax View' and early Grisham - a high-suspense legal thriller that hits the audience with a gripping, involving problem: a young judge (Douglas) is so faithful to the law that he sends a number of sociopaths free on legal technicalities, and then feels overwhelming guilt when innocent citizens are murdered by the scum he released. This is a wonderful and exciting theme; the judge's guilt and anger are palpable.<br /><br />But the film spends the remaining hour jerking the audience around so frantically that the viewer will feel like jerking back. It goes out of its way to convince the audience that an "illegal" problem introduced to solve its early dilemma -- (a secret society of dissatisfied judges who murder the scuzzbags who have been let loose) is justifiable and laudable, then it doubles back and spends the rest of the movie contradicting itself, trying to prove that such a solution is morally repugnant.<br /><br />What the hell??!! <br /><br />The result: one feels a sense of overwhelming nausea and depression. The film traps the viewer in a depressing web of nihilistic futility.<br /><br />I also found the subplot involving two child murderers and the glimpses of a child's bloodied, severed leg unspeakably depressing.<br /><br />This is one to avoid.