I've heard a lot about this movie but I wasn't prepared for the awful pacing. _Bridges of Madison County_ this is not. It's a movie from the 80s and so I'll make a degree of allowance for the time period but the real problem with the movie is it wants to spend way too much time setting up weird legal case studies on how people get off on crimes.

The movie is about some judges who get too fed up of legalese getting criminals off and decide to take justice into their own hands. It doesn't actually do that until about 60% into the movie. That's way too long. I would say it picks up from there but mostly it doesn't focus on the right things imo. Rather than going into the eponymous Star Chamber it spirals off on a single case. The feeling I get from the movie is that the characters make some choices about the Chamber but the movie doesn't care. Rather than being a movie that explores the ethics of the Star Chamber it's barely an action movie about a judge who gets invited to the Star Chamber. It leaves you with a movie that you don't care about but has ideas you want to talk about. I kinda feel like i can see where this movie's ideas have influenced some things but the movie isn't really worthy of being called an influencer.

As a minor note, there's just something about a sweaty 80s actor

https://i.imgur.com/0Bfjdop.jpeg

I just don't feel like I see actors noticeably sweat like that anymore. Shame the movie isn't brave enough to actually explore the questions it raises.