Not the great Hitchcock film of 1943, but actor Brian Dennehy's debut as a director. It's a courtroom drama in which Dennehy himself plays a lawyer, battling against the bottle, who takes on a case brought to him by a former girlfriend, Bonnie Bedelia. Her stepdaughter, it seems, has murdered her father, though in stories like this you know that the real truth will emerge either just before or just after the jury has delivered its verdict. Dennehy has the heavyweight presence of Raymond Burr's Perry Mason, but he's nearly matched by Fairuza Balk's turn as the troubled teen.

Charlie Sloan is an alcoholic defence lawyer drawn back into the courtroom by Robin Harwell, a woman he once loved who wants him to defend her stepdaughter Angel, who is accused of murder. Sloan is out of his depth as his opponents mount a bitter campaign to portray him as a drunk and the trial becomes a media circus. Can Sloan justify Robin's faith in him?