Customer Reviews

The Confession

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Did anyone who worked on this film ever hear of the concept of TRIAGE? No, I am not a healthcare professional, but I have been in ERs in three states myself or with family and friends. No patient is ever brought in and told to just 'sign in, we'll be with you in a minute.' You're interviewed by a triage nurse who assigns you a rating based on battlefield assessments:

1. They'll recover on their own if they're not seen to. This category has the longest to wait.

2. They'll need your help to recover. Generally, this is the priority one patient.

3. They need your help, but they're not going to recover. Priority two---because they can save lives if they see priority one first.

If they'd just done their research, they'd have known this--and I'm certain the writers could have found a more believable premise to slam the healthcare industry. For example, waiting on approval for your HMO to refer you to a specialist, waiting on board approval for surgery, etc.

What's the plot? Harry Fertig (Ben Kingsley's) son is ill with what they think is the flu. He and his wife Sara (Amy Irving) take their son to the ER. They're told to 'sign in and sit down.' As their son's condition worsens, Fertig pleas with a doc and nurse for help--they're on break. They finally go to take their son to another hospital and he dies in the cab from a ruptured appendix. In justice, Fertig shoots the doctor, nurse, and ward clerk. High powered and high profile attorney with serious ambitions, Roy Bleakie (Baldwin) is hired by Fertig's boss to defend Fertig and get him off on an NGRI (Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity) defense. The catch: Fertig doesn't want off. While one shrink will testify that he is insane and he could rest on that, Fertig believes that copping the plea lessens the 'just' killing of the three people. As Bleaky gets further and further, into the case, he realizes the man hiring him to defend Fertig may have other motives.

If you ignore that the initial setup of the film is highly flawed, "Confession" is an interesting study of society, right and wrong, fathers and sons. Is it right to kill people whose uncaring kill a member of your family? Is it acceptable to ruin a colleague for your own ambitions? And, when can you not look away?

This is a great film to rent once, but I would not purchase this film for my collection. It has limited appeal as a rerun.

Finally a movie about a man who has murdered but doesn't want to pin the blame for his actions on someone else. An emergency room receptionist, a nurse and a doctor ignore the pleadings of a desperate father (Kingsly) to help his five year old son who is critically ill. The son dies of a highly treatable burst appendix on the way to a different hospital. Six weeks later the father kills these three people and turns himself into the police. What follows is a complex story about politics, a man's grappling with right and wrong before his own God and a lawyer (Baldwin) who, caught in the middle of the devine and the corrupt, faces the biggest moral decision of his life. The performances by all are excellent and I highly recommend this movie.... It's not a perfect film but beats most of the low-brow films resting on the shelves these days.

It's interesting to see all these reviews focused in on the "ludicrous" plot hook -- a sick child is allowed to get worse and die in an ER waiting room. I wonder what all the reviewers think now, when (as I write this) leading the news is the story of a woman who died in an ER waiting room waiting to be seen.

Not that this small bit of vindication helps the movie in any way. It's still meandering, rough, less than compelling.

If nothing else, THE CONFESSION is an honest attempt to look at our society and see what is really important: when healthcare professionals take their jobs seriously, when does a cigarette break justify the death of a five year old with a burst appendix? Ben Kingsley stars as a father whose son dies in his arms in a taxi on the way to another hospital, because the clerk, doctor and nurse in the emergency room failed to meet their responsibilities. While a bit overblown in execution, the movie achieves its thrust on this tragic incident. Kingsley later murders in cold blood those three medical professionals and then wants to be punished for the crimes.
Step in seedy Alec Baldwin as a career-driven lawyer who wants to become District Attorney, who is given the case and told to plead Kingsley not guilty due to insanity. There's a deeper reason for this plot device, and it involves more than just Kingsley's guilt.
While Baldwin and Amy Irving do well in their roles as the lawyer and Kingsley's wife, the movie suffers most because of the fiercely unemotional performance of Kingsley. While one can feel his rage, his cold demeanor, the way he treats his wife, and his inability to think outside his own rage, makes for a very unsympathetic character. Softening him up some would have made the movie more relative.
Still, a good, well done film overall.

MAYBE, if this film was set in the 1960s--when the novel was actually written (1966, in fact)--it would have been much more credible--MAYBE. As another reviewer points out, the central incident of the film that triggers all the ensuing events which occurs in a hospital emergency room is just too ridiculous to be believable. In that ER, two of the main characters--a married couple played by Ben Kingsley and Amy Irving--are told that their very sick son is not any more important than any other patient waiting to be seen.

These days, even in crummy hospitals, the ER nurse determines the severity of the patient's illness or condition to assign a priority of physician evaluation. And that was probably true even in the 1960s. But since this film is set in modern times (it was released in 1999), the events that follow from the tragic incident in the ER really lose their importance.

In spite of that, there are some good performances here, principal among which are, interestingly, Alec Baldwin and Jay O. Sanders as the mega-millionaire who's hiding a secret of greed and corruption. Ben Kingsley and Amy Irving are good in their roles as the grieving parents, but for my money, it's really Baldwin and Sanders who stand out. As well, Kevin Conway, in a smaller role, adds some strong acting chops as a PI on retainer by the Baldwin character, a hotshot lawyer who's out to prove how hot he can be...and winds up changing his mind. Ann Twomey, as the sexy judge Baldwin has the hots for (and it's definitely mutual) is also good.

Probably the best way to view this film is as a parable without taking the ER incident literally. The real issue is ethics--what is a good man? Is he someone who never sins? Or someone who is human enough to sin, but strong enough to admit he has sinned, and stronger still to expiate his sins? The film argues for the latter interpretation. One thing that Kingsley, in his "good" roles, can do is to convey a sense of humility fused with a fierce kind of pride that in essence smacks the viewer between the eyes--as if to say, you see, I know what is important and I acknowledge your value, but at the same time, I do in fact count for something myself and I am going to make sure you know that.

This is certainly worth seeing to see the morality of sin and retribution on display. As to whether it is worth owning is likely debatable.

"The Confession" is an odd little legal thriller that was either made for Cable TV or went straight to video. Either way, it could never have succeeded as a theatrical release. It is neither visceral enough for younger viewers nor cerebral enough for older ones. It is intended, I think, to spark philosophical debate, but its over-the-top scenario doesn't lend itself to serious intellectual scrutiny.

A ruthless, unethical lawyer [Alec Baldwin], who is vying to be the district attorney of a major city, finds his world turned upside down when he is urged to defend a businessman [Ben Kingsley] who is charged with killing three hospital workers in cold blood. The motive? Revenge. The victims were indifferent when the man and his wife [Amy Irving] rushed their critically ill young son to the hospital. Unable to receive proper treatment, the boy dies in his father's arms in a taxi on the way to another hospital. For reasons revealed at the end of the movie, the lawyer is paid handsomely - and virtually promised the DA job - if he can get the man off via an insanity plea. The problem is that the defendant isn't crazy and actually wants to be convicted of the crimes.

I have not read "Fertig", the novel on which this movie is based. Perhaps the arguments about right and wrong, crime and punishment come through in the book. A major flaw in the film is that the audience can never connect with the accused. In the short scenes showing the man interacting with the son, strong bonds are never adequately demonstrated. During the medical crisis, one is left to wonder why the couple didn't call 911 rather than taking a cab. The murders are depicted in a brutal fashion. The movie might have worked better if both the killings and the couple's relationship with the son were never actually shown, but only alluded to at the beginning. This would have allowed the audience to imagine these things and perhaps then identified more closely with the father.

Alec Baldwin shows he capable of being an effective attorney in this movie. Ben Kingsley portrays his Jewish client who is accused of murdering three people. This movie will make you think about law in two realms: legalistic and canonical. A great movie especially for those aspiring philosphers.

"The Confession" is a respectably good legal-thriller plot marred by wooden, stereotyped acting and directing. I'm not a bit surprised to learn that the director works mostly in TV - this has the feel of one of those USA Network evening dramas, all slick surfaces and cardboard characters. The plot appeals to the viewer's intelligence at the same time the presentation insults it.

Alec Baldwin, as expected, does creditably well in the role of Alec Baldwin, but the "A" list aspirations of the picture are lowered to "B" movie level by the presence of cartoons like Jay Sanders' Jac Renoble. Sanders plays the big coporate bad guy as your typical TV alpha male powermeister, purring pre-fabricated menace with every whispered syllable (at one point he even says: "When I buy things..I do what I want with them," while caressing a large wooden model yacht.)

The biggest hole in the picture is Ben Kingsley's portrayal of the devout murderer. We're obviously not meant to fall in love with him, but Kingsley's Harry Fertig is barely even worthy of our sympathy - stiff, pious, grave, talking in Old Testament platitudes, it's difficult to imagine him truly loving his dead son or anything but the idea of God he's always going on about. It left a taste in this viewer's mouth that distracted from what otherwise was a compelling story.

I'd be interested to read the novel this was made from. The story undoubtedly deserved better treatment.

Although this movie is not encoded with Dolby 5.1, the casts' acting and the story are good enough to keep you stayed with the movie. It will not disappoint those Alec Baldwin's fans as he did a very good job by acting as a talent lawyer ( as he did in " Ghosts of Mississippi " ) I myself am Alec's fan and I keep up the collection with all his movies. His potential can make a lot of aspects in action, adventure, sci-fiction movies besides dramas.

He says he killed one doctor, one nurse and one clerk as revenge for his dead son. You see, early on, in a highly unconvincing scene, he had walked into a crowded emergency room, carrying his dying son on his shoulder, he had looked the doctor in the eye and said "I beg you, please look at him". The doctor ignored him and resumed his break, the nurse told him to wait his turn and the clerk hushed him away. In desperation, he jumped into a cab where his son suddenly died of an unidentified affliction. The twist in this Death Wish type set up is that Harry Fertig (Ben Kingsley) is a deeply religious man, who is more then willing to own up and pay for his crimes. Ostensibly, he believes that what his actions were justice. Paradoxically, he also believes that he should pay for his crimes, perhaps with the death penalty if need be, for that, he says would also be justice, God's justice.

A provocative idea, an interesting character who demands a worthy portrayal, an opportunity to explain himself, or just express himself. Kingsley, as stoic as ever, his hands always outstretched by his sides in a strangely robotic demeanor is rightly more confused then he is enraged. His argument is hollow even to himself. What little the audience is allowed to understand of this man, is that no matter how "accountable" he lets himself be, he is still a killer. In the same way that false modesty is nothing but calculated conceit, readily admitting one's wrong doing excuses that person from the punishment of being proven wrong. Fertig is allowed a couple of scenes of conflict and remorse, mainly by saying "God" a lot in all sorts of irrelevant contexts. But as a character study, the film is a resounding failure. It does however have a single strong point; because Fertig's lawyer urges him to plead insanity, his complete refusal to do so confirms, to the courts, that insanity. The Confession argues, telling the truth in situation where lies are not only expected but almost required to maintain a general consistency, renders the confessor insane.

Yet The Confession is not as interesting as that. The story of Harry Fertig doesn't turn out to be the main focus of the film. In keeping with a great tradition of cinematic mediocrity, the film's most promising plot thread is just a hook to pull you into an astonishingly bland story of a lawyer seeking redemption and corporate corruption that takes up more then three quarters of the running time. The latest movie lawyer trying to get out of Hell's VIP section is Roy Bleakie (Alec Baldwin). His dialogue is written to sound like movie lawyer's greatest hits with plenty of four lettered words thrown just to let you know that we're watching big boys now, and that The Confession, despite David Hugh Jones's prosaic direction and mundane pacing, is not a made-for-television movie.

Worse still, is the film's ridiculous treatment of the law. Even I know that a lawyer sleeping with the judge, who'd just ruled in his favour, and then openly displaying affection for the lovely judge in public is frowned upon. I don't profess to know much about law, let alone what is or what isn't common practice in another country, but I doubt that even John Grisham would leave something like that in.

Watching one scene in the film, where Bleakie and his aid sit at a local bar and have a heart to heart was just another monotonous moment in a film I had all but lost interest in. It did however remind me of that great scene in Gregory Hoblit's excellent Primal Fear, where Richard Gere looks at his companion and says "Why gamble with money, when you can gamble with people's lives." That film was also about a lawyer's attempted redemption. It was believable, gripping and textured. Everything The Confession is not.