PHILADELPHIA, Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, Antonio Banderas

Warning : This is a review of a super old and irrelevant movie .. you can't watch this in the cinema (in fact you may not even be able to find it in most DVD shops!!)

Every once in a while, I would feel this strong need to shut out the rest of the world, be completely alone and spend time in deep thought or engaging in some meaningful activities...such as going to the DVD shop and purchasing a pirated DVD of one of my old favourite movies!! Last weekend was one such period. Feeling in the mood for Tom Hanks, (his movie that is.. although looking at how hot he still is now.. I could've been in the mood for him in THAT way too ;)), I  set out on a mission to get Forrest Gump and ended up buying Philadelphia :P!

 

When the movie came out in 1993, I was only 11 years old and remember thinking how this would be a cool movie to watch (I probably didn't know Tom Hanks that well then, but any movie with long courtroom drama has always appealed to the lawyer-wannabe in me). I only watched it two years later though. Back then I totally loved it and cried at all the touching parts. So one might think that 15 years down the road, watching it again as an adult, I would be able to grasp the significance of the storyline to a greater degree and thus enjoy the movie better right?

Wrong!!!

This is a movie about Andrew Beckett (Tom Hanks), a young, up-and-coming lawyer in one of the top law firms in Philadelphia. Shortly after a promotion and being entrusted with one of the firm's biggest case, Andrew, who was a closeted homosexual, was diagnosed with AIDS and subsequently fired from his high-flying career. Although the reason given was his incompetency, Andrew later found out that he was dismissed because of his stigmatised health condition. Following this, Andrew brought legal action against his former employers and engaged the help of Joe Miller (Denzel Washington), a small-time 'ambulance-chasing' street lawyer, (after being turned down by numerous other firms). What ensued was a long and dramatic courtroom battle between Beckett and his former firm which ended in him winning the case but later succumbing to the disease.



With its team of A-list cast and a strong premise, it would have been fair to hope for one of the greatest most impactful genre-bending movies of all time. But alas.. such hope, no matter how fair it may seemed at first will definite fall short of one's expectations. Despite its promising start, the movie took a downhill turn from that point onwards. Speeding up through the important scenes (i.e. when Andrew was first diagnosed with HIV and how his condition started deteriorating thereon) and languishing painfully at irrelevant ones (the gay party scene and Andrew's opera-singing soul-revelation scene). Also, his relationship with his boyfriend Miguel Alvarez (Antonio Banderas) and his sexual habits were so sketchily depicted (although the scene where Miguel rushed to the hospital and started touching Andrew's face tenderly, asking whether he was alright was kind of cute), that one may not be able to really identify with this character in the first place, let alone sympathise with him as the story progresses.

The most disappointing part was the courtroom drama. I may be wrong but I believe that in a movie such as this, the courtroom battle is one of the most fundamental components of the movie. Doing it well will take the movie to great heights in depth and impact whilst having a mediocre set of courtroom scenes will just destroy the movie completely. It was the latter in Philadelphia. Maybe I am biased and maybe the super tight, fast-paced and factually strong legal drama of later years from great shows such as The Practice and Boston Legal have raised the bar too high that it is more difficult to impress a lay person/ courtroom drama fanatic/ lawyer buruk wannabe like me. But I was so disappointed and was almost bored during the court proceedings. It started strong with discerning opening remarks from Andrew's lawyer, Joe Miller and the defense lawyer Belinda Conine (Mary Steenburgen). But it fizzled out quickly soon after. The cross-examinations did not make any sense. The objections were cutesy and tame, at best. The lawyers looked more like amateur and stoned out presenters in a primary school class-room debate than fierce, high profile civil litigators, and the correlation between the allegations of the plaintiff and the supporting evidence was never established. For the most part, you would sit through each legal scene painfully, urging the characters to start giving you more. But you would be disappointed time and again. The best part of the courtroom scenes was when Andrew suddenly collapsed in the courtroom after his testimony. But the worst has got to be when the judgement and award of damages were announced. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in a movie where its entire premise and core goal have been about winning a legal battle against discrimination, the most impactful scene would've been the verdict and the award of the sum of damages, right? Call it predictable or formulaic but reading out the verdict and watching the winner jump for joy or members of the courthouse scream in outrage are some of the most influential scenes in any movie, period! Alas, you will not get this in Philadelphia as the movie cuts to the end of jury deliberation and later to the polling of the jury after the verdict and award of damages have been read!! Like most people, I couldn't care less whether it was a unanimous decision or not but I would have loved to hear the following words :

Judge : Madam foreperson, have the jury reached the verdict?
Foreman : We have your honour.
Judge : Very well, what say you?
Foreman : In the matter of XX v ZZ, we the jury, find in favour of the plaintiff...


Yay! People laugh, people scream, people cry and everybody go home happy!!

There were also many procedural inaccuracies in the courtroom proceedings. But these are too technical to get into.Perhaps some brilliant legal eagles can spot them. Like I said, being a former dedicated kaki ponteng law student, I am anal about such things.

The movie's saving grace was the commendable acting from its lead and supporting cast, as well as the cinematography. Hanks as expected did a great job as Andrew Beckett. It is no surprise that he won the Best Actor Oscar for this. Likewise, Denzel Washington was phenomenal as the conservative, homophobe who was also a compassionate street litigator. Having said that, I was expecting more of a clumsy, cocky and unpolished kind of lawyer from Washington. But I guess, he didn't have much to work with as the script and flow of the legal scenes were hopelessly boring. There's nothing much to be said about Banderas's Alvarez, as he didn't appear much in the movie. But hey, who knew that Banderas could look so young and jambu back in the days? Hahaa..

It is not all bad. There were some great scenes that could remind you of why Philadelphia was touted as an A-List movie. For example, the library scene where Miller finally decided to take on Beckett's case was splendidly done, showcasing the synergy and chemistry of both actors at its best. The movie was also one of the first big budget commercial films to take on the controversial subject matter of HIV/AIDS and homosexuality. And it managed to do so with finesse and simplicity without the usual exploitation of sexual orientation and sensationalism. Even Andrew's relationship with Miguel was seen as sweet, strong and somewhat believable. Although I must say, I was rather surprised when I heard the homophobic bigotry coming out from Miller's (Washington's) mouth and how he and the movie producers/ directors could have gotten away with it. Should the same movie with similar dialogues be produced and released today, the GLBT community would've definitely thrown a hissy fit and demanded a complete ban on such a discriminatory film! Shows how far we've come in the evolution of social perception :).

Another great thing about this movie is the awesome soundtrack "Streets of Philadelphia" by the ever-so-sexy Bruce Springsteen, which won the Best Song Oscar. The song created a subdued and melancholic feel to the movie which worked really well, especially during the beautiful opening credits.

Regardless, I was still extremely disappointed. Although some may find the closing scene (a silent old home video footage of Andrew as a healthy child) to be a great and touching finale, I still feel that the movie left so much more to be desired, and by the time the credits started rolling, I was left to ponder "Huh? How on earth did I ever find this movie to be so superb?" I guess the only rational conclusion is that growing up just broaden your perspective and changed your view on things. Oh well.... let's see how I'd feel when watching The Little Mermaid next.