... and forgets about justice. This is the story of LA police officer Karl Hettinger. In 1963, on a routine traffic stop Hettinger's partner, officer Ian Campbell, is overtaken by Gregory Powell (James Woods) and his partner in crime, Jimmy Smith (Franklyn Seales). The two panicked because they were on a bit of a minor robbery spree and feared discovery and arrest. They say they will shoot Campbell with his own gun if Hettinger does not drop his weapon, so Hettinger surrenders his weapon. Powell says he will let the two cops go in one of the fields near Bakersfield, but once there tries to kill them - he does kill Campbell - because he mistakenly thinks that the Lindbergh kidnapping law made all kidnapping a capital crime. Hettinger runs away, hides, and gets to a farmhouse where he contacts police. Powell and Smith are picked up later.
So the nightmare begins for Hettinger to where he probably envied Campbell's legacy as a cop mowed down on the job. Instead, Hettinger has to go in front of classrooms of cops and talk about what happened as an example of what not to do. The LA police force makes a point to tell officers to never surrender their gun and uses Hettinger as an object lesson. Hettinger ends up shoplifting, has to resign from the force, his marriage suffers, he drinks heavily, cannot hold a job, and idealizes suicide. And he just can't put this behind him either because Powell and Smith, initially sentenced to death for their crime, become jailhouse lawyers and file numerous appeals, forcing Hettinger to testify repeatedly over the years at the various hearings that their paperwork generates.
For the lenient times, it was a rare criticism of the legal system that became increasingly about loopholes and less about justice. At one point, one of the exasperated prosecuting attorneys says - after seven years of being on this case - that if he had the power he would let Powell and Smith go if only he could prosecute and sentence the defense attorneys to death. I think that was an actual off the record remark. It probably is true that if Powell and Smith had committed their crime ten years, maybe even five years before they did, they would have been executed shortly thereafter.
There are some excellent performances here, especially James Woods as the amoral, flamboyant, and completely remorseless Greg Powell. Woods had been on the screen for a few years, but this role got him noticed. In his first film role is Ted Danson, later Sam Malone of Cheers, as officer Ian Campbell.
The only thing to ring false with me was the portrayal of Hettinger's wife as somebody with a therapist's compassion and saint's patience with her husband. I find it hard to believe that, after years of living with the consequences of what happened in the onion field that night in 1963, she wouldn't be just a little annoyed and frayed around the edges.
1 out of 1 found this helpful