Directed by Jonathan Kaplan (Girls of the White Orchid, White Line Fever, Fallen Angels anthology TV series).
Written by Tom Topor. Cinematography by Ralf D. Bode (Saturday Night Fever, Dressed To Kill) , Music by Brad
Fiedel.
The film is loosely based on the 1983 gang rape of Cheryl Araujo on a pool table by a handful of bar patrons in New Bedford,
Massachusetts.
"During the prosecution of the case, the defendants' attorneys cross-examined Araujo to such an extent about her own life and activities that the case became widely seen as a template for "blaming the victim" in rape cases." (Wiki)
Kelly McGillis (Witness) as Kathryn Murphy. Jody Foster (Taxi Driver, Silence of the Lambs) as Sarah Tobias, Bernie Coulson as Ken Joyce, Leo Rossi (Analyze This), as Cliff 'Scorpion' Albrect. Ann Hearn (Lorenzo's Oil) as Sally Frasier.
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| Kelly McGillis as Katheryn Murphy |
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| Jody Foster as Sarah Tobias |
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| Bernie Coulson as Ken Joyce |
This is one of those on the "Cusp of Noir" Neo Noir films that teeter totters as half a court room drama. It's one of those films that will have a substantial subjective component to it also.
The beginning shows you the entire story from the viewpoint of the Earth, another day's end in an eternity of days ends. The Pacific Northwest. Washington State. Twilight fades to Night.
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| The Mill |
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We see sitting under a highway overpass, and looking at what looks like an old "roadhouse." It's a roadside dive bar called The Mill. It's red neon is out on a tall post out on the two lane, it glows on a buzzsaw circle, backlit by blue neon arrows sequentially pointing circularly in towards the gravel parking lot entrance. A Washington state logging town in the Pacific Northwest. The Mill has been packed with townies and college kids from dusk till now.
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We see the door fling open. a faint red glow floods across the gravel. Somebody runs out of the bar out to the highway and across the pavement into a phonebooth. Our voice over is the phone conversation between the male who just ran out of The Mill and the police phone dispatcher.
Dispatcher: May I have your name?
Male voice: Listen a girl's in trouble....
We are zoomed in on the Entrance, and again see the bar door fling open, framing Sarah. She's screaming and backlit by a red neon and smoke haze.
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Her top is half torn off so she's holding what's left of it up. She's wearing a jean skirt and sandals. She sprints across the gravel driveway and down into a ditch with water.
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The beginning is a partial homage, a riff on Kiss Me Deadly - Cloris Leachman's run, wearing only a raincoat, arms outstretched, towards Ralf Meeker's 1951 Jaguar XK 120 Roadster, and then it segues into Anatomy Of A Murder. It somewhat reminded me of Lee Remick's description of the events leading up to her rape by Barney Quinn in Thunder Bay.
At this point in the film we begun the police procedural / courtroom drama segment of the film.
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| Scratches and scrapes |
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| Black and blue contusions on Sarah's back |
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| Getting a semen sample |
Sarah told Sally that she thought the eventual instigator of the rape was cute, and she voluntarily danced with him and went with him to the back room and the pinball machines. We find out also that she had a fight with her current boyfriend just prior and headed out of the trailer house to The Mill in revenge.
DA Murphy starts doing some poking around where everything went down visiting The Mill and the nearby trailer park where Sarah lives.
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| Sarah's trailer |
The three rapists are easily identified and put on trial, but, Sarah feels betrayed when Murphy goes for a plea deal.
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The rapists agree to plead guilty to reckless endangerment a felony but without a sexual offence. That plea gets them back on the streets in nine months. The rape charge would have put them all away for five years.
Sarah Tobias: You don't understand how I feel! I'm standing there with my pants down and my crotch hung out for the world to see and three guys are sticking it to me, a bunch of other guys are yelling and clapping and you're standing there telling me that that's the best you can do. Well, if that's the best you could do, then your best sucks! Now, I don't know what you got for selling me out, but I sure as shit hope it was worth it!
Months go by.
It goes Noirsville when Sarah gets harassed in a grocery store parking lot by one of the bar patrons Cliff 'Scorpion' Albrect, who watched and was the twisted cheerleader of her rape.
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Sarah T-bones her 75 Camaro car into his 73 GMC pickup. Murphy feeling guilty decides to prosecute the bar patrons who hooted, egged them on. and clapped for criminal solicitation.
Noirsville
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| Leo Rossi as Cliff 'Scorpion' Albrect |
Director Jonathan Kaplan and Cinematographer Ralf D. Bode bookends most of the trial portion of the film, with Noir visuals that accompany the story of the events of the night of Sarah's gang rape. It exposes the way society circa 1988 looked upon victims of rape. The film was very loosely based on the true story of 1983 gang rape of Cheryl Araujo on a pool table in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
"“The Accused” demonstrates that rape victims often are suspects in their own cases. Surely they must have been somehow to blame. How were they behaving at the time of the crime? How were they dressed? Had they been drinking? Is their personal life clean and tidy? Or are they sluts who were just asking for it? I am aware of the brutal impact of the previous sentence. But the words were carefully chosen, because sometimes they reflect the unspoken suspicions of officials in the largely male judicial system." (Roger Ebert)
Not a hell of a lot has changed has it? 7/10
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