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Chaos in the Courtroom


You have to hand it to David E. Kelley. The success of Picket Fences, Ally McBeal, and Big Little Lies bought him the freedom to do whatever he wants with Presumed Innocent. The trailer looks promising, but few had high hopes for an adaptation of Scott Turow's first novel that had already spawned a Harrison Ford flick 34 years ago.

Ah, 1990…the Gulf War. It was the year when I was afraid to go to birthday parties for fear that everyone would start singing Taylor Dayne's Love Will Lead You Back. 1990 was the year when I caught mumps and chickenpox. It was the year when no one was quite sure what happened between my science teacher and my classmate's dad, but they were sure happy about it.

A reason to see Presumed Innocent is the amazing performances by Jake Gyllenhaal and Bill Camp. A reason not to see it is if you're already very familiar with the book and the movie. For some reason, I even had a paperback…but I'd never read it, start to finish. So here I am, on my way to the fifth episode, and I didn't expect to like the first four as much as I did.

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