5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a remarkable story that really happened, November 17, 2008
Based on
a book with the same title, this film tells an unusual story that really happened.
Until 1991 Berlin was formally under 4-power Allied military occupation. In the later years of the Cold War no one really paid much attention to that: The Soviet Zone, East Berlin, was the capital of the German Democratic Republic. West Berlin was essentially a part of West Germany with the French, British and U.S. zones combined as single municipality.
Then a hijacked airliner--taken over by nice people fleeing Communist subjugation--landed at Tempelhof Airport in West Berlin.
Nice hijackers are still hijackers and the commies demanded their return. Suddenly West Berlin was an allied military zone again. Neither the West German nor the West Berlin governments would touch the issue. The Germans reminded all that the occupation was technically still in effect. Since Tempelhof was in the U.S. Zone, it was for the United States to handle the case.
And that is what this movie is about. The U.S. set up a unique court in the American Zone of Allied Occupied Berlin. The judge--played by Martin Sheen--was a federal judge from New Jersey. The fascinating part of the story is how remarkably complex it was to set up that court and adjudicate the case.
The made-for-television Judgement in Berlin was filmed where it happened. It is no work of art but the story is an extraordinary and true legal tale.
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
horrible blue-ray transfer, December 30, 2011
Exactly why anyone would bother to put a film of this poor quality out on a blu-ray disc completely evades me. The video quality and audio quality are both unbelievably bad. I purchase blu-ray discs at least partly for the experience provided by the normally outstanding video and audio quality of the discs themselves. The movie itself has the feel of the cheap, made for television flick that is is, although I don't ever recall seeing a movie of any sort of this recent a vintage that both looked and sounded so bad. The production of this film is 80's cheese at its worst. The color is terrible. If the blu-ray is this poor I can't imagine how bad it must have been in other formats. I have VHS tapes created using the slowest recording speed that look better than this on the big screen. The quality is so poor it really should come with a warning on the label. Avoid this one.
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
judgment in berlin, September 27, 2010
I viewed it before many times over, and this time, twenty years past, I still am exhilarated with its pointers on international politics, fighting tyranny, asserting one's rights, and of course, having a conscientious judge played well by Martin Sheen.
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