Customer Reviews

Judgment in Berlin

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

NOTE: THIS REVIEW GIVES AWAY PART OF THE ENDING. I HAVE PUT THREE ASTERISKS BEFORE AND AFTER THAT PART OF THE REVIEW.

I just found a copy of "Judgment in Berlin" (1988), which stars Martin Sheen, Sean Penn, and Carl Lumbly (Syney Bristow's partner in the TV-series "Alias"), among others. It's an excellent story, co-written and directed by Leo Penn (Sean's father).

Synopsis: Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, an East German man hijacks a plane bound for East Berlin and diverts it to West Berlin. Because he did not merely escape but committed hijacking, which the US government claims is "terrorism," he must stand trial in West Berlin in a specially-constituted American court.

The government argues, among other things, that constitutional rights do not apply since the court is an "occupation court" which is a tool of the Department of State in its exercise of foreign policy, not an independent "Article 2" federal court.

((DON'T READ THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW THE END!)) ***The judge disagrees and in the end refuses to allow the defendant to be put into the hands of the government at all since he says he believes them when they say they won't respect his rights.***

Many of the legal arguments and aspects in the film mirror those being used today in US detentions and prosecutions both in the US and overseas. (For example, "unlawful enemy combatants" held in the US in military brigs, Guantanamo detainees, and several cases of American citizens held by the US and being prosecuted in Iraq.)

In other words, the film is accurate in its legal and political framework. The film, moreover, raises the same moral questions often NOT being raised or considered now in cases analogous to the one in the movie. The film is an excellent teaching tool about these issues.

Not an exciting action film, just a straightforward story, it is nonetheless a good script, good directing, and good acting. Sheen plays the judge quite well. Penn does a good job playing a young German who testifies for the defense (as someone who lived in Austria as a child, I thought his accent was pretty good). Young Lumbly does equally well as a prosecutor. Others in the cast, all fine.

Jennifer Van Bergen, J.D. Author of: "The Twilight of Democracy: The Bush Plan for America" (Common Courage Press, 2004), and other books and articles on issues of law and human rights.

Don't be fooled by actors like "Martin Sheen"! and "Sean Penn"! Sean Penn has a small dorkey part where he talks with a lame German accent. Martin Sheen is OK but this really is no better than a low budget movie of the week. I watched the clock more than the film.