User reviews

I saw this film with my girlfriend about a year after I graduated from college, where I had lived in the alpha-male, females-as-accessories environment of a fraternity house. While I know of nothing that went on in my fraternity that compares to the horrible events of this film, I was struck that some of the beer-fueled conversations I had with my fraternity brothers could have led to the same results with more likelihood than I realized at the time (or care to admit even to this day). Suffice it to say, I cried all the way home from this movie, as much from shame as anything else.

Twelve years later, I still cannot recall being as horrifyingly struck by a scene as I was during the rape scene at the end of "The Accused" -- and I definitely do not have the stomach to see it again. The movie, in my view, is exceedingly well-acted (Foster's Oscar was well-deserved) and well-told. It has the rare gift of touching the viewer viscerally for the entire duration -- discomfort being the feeling.

This isn't virtuoso film-making like "The Godfather", but at the same time I can think of no greater compliment for a movie than it truly opened my eyes to a new perspective that I was not mature enough to grasp on my own. I left the theater a different person -- how often can that be said?

I don't watch many courtroom dramas. I've seen most of the great ones: 12 Angry Men, Witness for the Prosecution, To Kill a Mockingbird. Of all the ones that predate The Accused, Not many push as far into the red zone as this. As you go back through the decades of Hollywood cinema, films get more and more censored. In parts, The Accused is quite brutal. It would probably have seemed even more so to those who viewed it upon release 20 years ago. There are two trials in this movie. For the first, the accused persons have been charged with rape. For the second, the accused persons (different people) are charged with the crime of cheering it on (to put it in more casual terms). What the movie gives us a taste of is extremely inhumane, worse than murder even. That and two good actresses at the top of their game, results in a credible, involving courtroom drama. The screenplay is a tad over written in some places, so it's not a brilliant movie, but it is a fine specimen to sample for those who enjoy this genre.

I was appalled by one reviewers comments on this movie, stating that a rape victim "got what she deserved". NO one, Woman or man, deserves to be raped, violated or harmed just because they were at the wrong place.

This movie is based on a true story, and the actors were very moving. People make mistakes, someone could be that upset and choose to behave in a manner not appropriate, yet when that Person chooses to stop and say NO, then No is it. No, Stop, Don't, these words do not mean, well, I ask for it. Anyone who thinks otherwise, I feel sorry for because they are sad, lonely and deprived of self worth.

Jodi Foster Is a great actress and puts all her strength in her roles. She is very talented and she and Kelly M. made this movie. Hopefully the person that had to endure this horrid act, is going on, with strength and success.

Jodie Foster plays Sarah Tobias, a small-town waitress with a bad reputation(and drug user) who is brutally attacked by three men in a bar, who were also being cheered on by some of the onlookers. Sarah is determined to convince the District Attorney on the case(Kelly McGillis) to bring it to trial, not just the three attackers, but the onlookers as well.

Powerful film is supremely well acted by Jodie Foster(Academy Award Winner)Film runs the risk of being crass exploitation, but is well directed, and again it is the sympathetic and defiant performance of Jodie as this wronged, violated woman that makes this film work as well as it does.

Not for the faint-hearted.

Many people think that Rosa Parks was to first to sit at the front of the bus and refuse to get up all those years ago in 1955. In fact, two other women had sat on the front of the bus and refused to get up before Rosa Parks. The problem is that one of those women was a pregnant teenager while the other was also less than the ideal poster child for a movement. A bus boycott and a cry for civil rights wasn't going to have the same impact if the impetus behind it was a person of less than stellar character. They needed a Mary Sue.

In the movie "The Accused" Sarah Tobias (Jodie Foster) was no Mary Sue. She was far from it, but that was not a justification for rape and the peanut galleryism that accompanied it.

Rightly or wrongly, in this society there are such things as good rape victims (meaning easy to prosecute the rapists) and bad rape victims (meaning difficult to prosecute the rapists). The good rape victim is one who is a conservatively dressed strait-laced woman minding her own business. A bad rape victim is a sexily-dressed, promiscuous woman prone to drinking and/or drugs and behaving in a provocative way.

Sarah Tobias was a bad rape victim.

She was sending all the signals that a lascivious man would need to act upon his lusts. She was scantily clad, entertaining the come-ons, giggling at everything the man said, smoking pot, drinking alcohol, and to top it all off; she did a sexy dance routine when no one else was on the dance floor. In the mind of the guy with no self-control: "she was asking for it." Whatever he, or anyone else, thought she was "asking for," she wasn't asking to be choked, pinned down, and forcibly raped by three men on a pinball machine. Only in the most depraved society would a woman be "asking" for that.

"The Accused" is a gutsy film that punches you in the gut. It equally tests your dedication to justice for Sarah and your despise of her actions leading up to the rape. "The Accused" doesn't hold back anything. It shows all the less than discretionary behavior of Sarah Tobias which makes you want to slap some sense into her at least. And it shows the despicably loathsome behavior of the rapists that make you want to protect Sarah and serve up some medieval style justice to her rapists. No, you are not spared. You will have to confront your feelings about the entire situation. And whether you feel comfortable about yourself and your opinions afterward or not, you will have some concrete thoughts and opinions.

For this role Jodie received bunch of nominations and six awards, including her first Oscar. In my opinion, her role of Nell deserves an Oscar much more than this one or her role in "Silence of the Lambs" and this is far from being her best movie, but it has really strong story and it's worth watching.

7/10

Perfectly knowing that a lot of people would get inspired, personally relate or cite examples from this film, there is no reason to deny that except for the rape victim Sarah Tobias, all the other main characters, even attorney Kathryn Murphy, are written blatantly as stereotypical as they can be. Same can be said about the atmosphere, circumstances and the participators of the incident. The screenwriters have played only one masterstroke by showing the whole rape incident much later in a flashback, which perhaps helps us to relate better to the victim's emotions.

However predictable and blunt the film appears in its formation, it delivers it message right with the help of the outstanding (and Oscar-winning) performance of Jodie Foster. She just plays her part with so much passion that sometimes it would seem that she really IS the victim. I wonder how she could get such a driving force for her role which is so powerful and vengeful, yet so helpless and fragile. It is the performance of her career, Clarice Sterling doesn't even come in comparison. Her job in this film should be treated as educational material.

After watching Jonathan Kaplan's "The Accused" a second time after 28 years, I was wondering: has the film aged badly or has justice improved tremendously?

The film concludes with disturbing statistics about one rape occurring in the United States every six minutes and one out of four being collective. I guess it's a blessing that we live in a time where the consentement of a woman isn't put into equation when she solicits justice after a rape, anyway not when a case is so horrendous as Sarah Tobias, a young woman who entered "The Mill" to chill out after a quarrel with her boyfriend and left it ravaged both externally and internally.

I suspect it didn't improve much, but the most difficult part of that subject is that like any crime that results in the confrontation of two parties: some attenuating circumstances are being sought if not the victim's responsibility in the form of apparent consentement. In Sarah's case, that she was drunk, wearing provocative clothes and looking like a low-class bimbo didn't facilitate her quest for justice and even the women who took photographs of her mutilated body didn't show much empathy.

That was 1988, and the story based on 1983 real-life incident, 30 years after and the #MeToo era having come through, rape has extended to situations of abuse of power due to professional status or age, which makes the areas of consentement grayer and rape of the chief causes of feminism. But "The Accused" is simply about justice.

Sarah, magnificently played by Jodie Foster, has been sexually assaulted on an pinball machine by three men in a bar, under the cheers and acclamations of other inebriated men making a pornographic live spectacle out of a crime, pure and simple. And the film's greatest accomplishment was to show the crime, it was accused of voyeurism or sexual exploitation but no, this is a film that reveals an ugly side of the human mind, and in such a truthful way watching it can only be helpful for us, to reconsider our thoughts in a more empathetic way toward victims, real or potential ones.

And having the victim a trailer trash type of girl not as articulate and educated as a student or a nurse, a smoker, drinker and a liberated girl might incline some loose minds to find excuses for the assaillant. "The Accused" is the antidote to such poisonous thoughts. When Assistant D. A. Kathryn Murphy (Kelly McGillis) make deals with the defense and replace the term 'rape' by 'reckless endangerment' to avoid the trial, preserve one of the accused's honor, and let them serve a mild sentence, it gives you an idea about how the legal system works.

But like the best trial films, a line is drawn between justice and legality. After the verdict, Sarah feels cheated by her defendant and finds herself harrased by one of the men who literally orchestrated the operation by taunting the second and the third rapist (creepily played by Leo Rossi), resurrecting Sarah's trauma but also allowing Kathryn to have her own epiphany. It's one thing to charge rapists, but what about those who encouraged them? As the film goes to its foregone climax, the real points stops to be Sarah's responsibility but the one of the other men who kept cheering, clapping and calling the turns.

As Kathryn points it out during the trial, as a moral as it is, one can't be convicted for witnessing a rape and turning his face away, but cheers might constitute a form of participation, hence accessory. That question sheds a new light on the previous sentences and Kathryn is put in the situation where her own career is at stakes, which is the narrative arc that accompanies Sarah's own: to be recognized as a victim of rape. It's not a matter of nobility but of principles and also a necessity to prevent such crimes to happen again.

The film is sober in tone and ordinary in its structure because the subject is so important it couldn't be distracted by "originality" or some twist, Kenneth Joice (Bernie Coulson) who's the boy who called the police and watched the whole thing isn't even a last-minute witness and is showed from the very start. However, the film showcases the extraordinary talent of Jodie Foster who won the Oscar, and it's probably deserved because it was perhaps the hardest role she ever had. McGillis deserve praises, as for the accused ones, that they felt sick during the shooting of the climax tells you how willing everyone was to show the reality of rape in its ugliest form.

And I remember watching the film at 11, I had to cover my eyes during the climax because it felt truly like an horror film, which it was. The most brutal part isn't just the gang rape but the sheer terror on Sarah's eyes, the way the camera shows her POV, and the cries and shouts around making "The Mill" a hell an absolute hell on earth for Sarah, putting into perspective Kenneth's dilemma to betray his best friend Bob (Steve Antin) by calling what he done by its name.

Writer Tom Toper deserves accolades for not turning the film into a battle-of-the-sexes thing, but a simple matter of justice for Sarah and redemption for those who didn't help her, whether Kenneth or even Kathryn who sold her for the first verdict. It also shows the role of peer pressure in such cases, especially through the last man who assaulted her because his virility was being ridiculed.

Within its normal look, "The Accused" might be the ultimate film about rape because it not only questions the causes without accusing the victim but it also raises collateral issues that can be extended to other crimes, and it's not afraid to show the whole thing, so if people can't stand watching it, maybe if they witness it someday, they will know the right thing to do.

The shocking true story of a bar room gang rape is lifted from the headlines to become, with dramatic license, a serious and troubling study of sexism at its worst, when the victim herself is accused of 'asking for it'. Jodie Foster offers a courageous performance as the tough but vulnerable Sarah Tobias, whose behavior on the night of the crime was certainly provocative, but as the flashback re-enactment shows all too clearly no amount of provocation could justify such a brutal response. Up until those final scenes the film is a well-crafted but largely conventional topical drama, with lots of predictable bonding between Foster and her conscience stricken attorney Kelly McGillis. But the attack itself, teasingly saved until the final reel, is so graphic and degrading it obliterates the memory of everything that happened earlier. The scene is pure exploitation, but it serves a purpose, putting audiences in the same, ugly position as the cheering onlookers in the bar, who in many ways were even guiltier than the rapists themselves.

The same year Jodie Foster got an Oscar for "The Accused" Meryl Streep was nominated for "A Cry In The Dark" Both films climax in a court room. Look at Jodie and look at Meryl. Jodie (don't get me wrong she's always been one of my favourites) but her intelligence, her brain, overshadows her character's predicament. Her "anguish" in the witness box lacks the emotion it requires because there is something about Jodie that tells us, she is really on top of it. She is acting, beautifully, but acting. Meryl, on the other hand, is heartbreaking in the witness box in "A Cry In The Dark" the intelligence of the actress doesn't come to interfere with the character's. The actress is in total control. Jodie is a very good actress, Meryl is a genius. At the centre of "The Accused" is Jodie's brain, so compelling in "Silence of the Lambs" so distracting in "The Accused"

One of the roughest films ever produced that is pure misery to sit through due to its realism and Jodie Foster's striking Oscar-winning performance. Foster stars as a sexual victim who tries to get prison sentences imposed upon the men who cheered on her gang rape at a sleazy roadhouse. Foster is far from being an angel herself and every little thing in her past seems to come back and haunt her. A great supporting turn from Kelly McGillis (who plays Foster's lawyer) just adds to Foster's show-stopping role. Not a film I love, but a good film that displays the seemingly ungodly cinematic talents of Jodie Foster. 4 stars out of 5.

After a young woman (Jodie Foster) suffers a brutal rape in a bar one night, a prosecutor (Kelly McGillis) assists in bringing the perpetrators to justice, including the ones who encouraged and cheered on the attack.

First of all, is this Foster's worst haircut ever? Yes. The answer is yes. But that is really beside the point.

We know the classic story: someone is assaulted and then their personal life, their alcohol habits, their outfit come into question. That story is well-known. But this film takes it a step further: what about those who witness a crime and refuse to stop it, possibly even encouraging it? An interesting legal question, to be sure. But how will it play out in court? And does the way it plays out in the film mirror how it would go in real life? I suppose these are some philosophical, legal questions.

Jodie Foster's performance is good and the gang rape scene at the end of the film is horrific, but the whole movie has the unfortunate feel of a made-for-TV movie. As Jarvis Cocker of Pulp sang, "A movie made for TV, with bad dialogue, bad acting, and no interest. Along with no story and no sex."

Actually, I don't feel the movie was THAT uneventful (I just wanted to squeeze in the Pulp reference, to tell you the truth.) But the difficult subject matter is rendered tame with a boring court case and lots of "You can't win this trial!" dialogue between Kelly McGillis and her bosses. What's worse, the conclusion of the case of the case is never in doubt. Yawn.

The movie is best when it focuses on how Sarah reacts to the rape. She is a fragile woman who acts braver than she is, and her struggle with the rape is rendered clearly and plainly on Foster's face and in her mannerisms. The scene in the record store is uncomfortable and disconcerting, as it should be.

McGillis, though, isn't believable as the prosecutor. She is too bland, too unconvincing; she seems like a calculated attempt at a strong woman character. She never exists as anything more than "the lawyer."

This could have been a very powerful film, one that conveys the pain and anguish of such a terrible crime. As it is, I had to settle for a few powerful moments and some toothless filler.

The Accused, the only film I've seen about rape, has some very important messages about the crime and the victims. No matter how a woman is dressed, how sexy she may look, or how flirtatious she may be, she has the right to say no and be respected. Also, if you encourage and applaud a crime, like rape, you are just as responsible for the crime as the assailants.

The unfairness of the legal system is very clear here: rape victims are just that, victims. Just because a woman may have dressed provocatively, or flirtatiously, doesn't mean she asked for it or deserved it. The rapists and the onlooker are the ones at fault. The unfortunate truth is, the legal system and the society doesn't always see it that way.

Jodie Foster, in what is unquestionably the finest performance of her career, plays Sarah Tobias, the victim of a brutal gang rape. Sarah is no angel, she drinks heavily, smokes marijuana, and has a live-in boyfriend who's a drug dealer. She's somewhat inarticulate, doesn't appear to have much formal education, and speaks her mind bluntly when expressing her anger.

Kelly McGillis, in another convincing performance, plays Deputy District Attorney Katherine Murphy. Murphy is a smart and talented DA who does sympathize with Sarah, but has become somewhat inured to the flaws of the legal system. She wants the rapists incarcerated, but doesn't seem to want to pull with both hands because she doesn't believe Sarah will make a strong enough witness.

The crime is plea bargained down to a lesser charge of reckless endangerment. Sarah is justifiably outraged for two reasons: it was not reckless endangerment, and she never got to testify in court. It is only after Sarah is verbally harassed by one of the onlookers (against whom Sarah retaliates in her own fit of rage in a scene where I won't reveal the details), that McGillis's character begins to see things clearly: the victim has a right to be heard and have her day in court.

"I can offer that to you now," she later tells Sarah, "the deal won't matter because the the rape will go on record." She decides to prosecute the onlookers who encouraged the rape for Criminal Solicitation. This is perhaps the greatest message in the movie: if you not only don't step in and stop a crime, but actually encourage it, you are still an accessory and guilty of a criminal act.

Her superiors in the District Attorney's Office are, at first, against this: but McGillis persists. She knows the three men did encourage the attack and kept it going. It is really refreshing to watch her transition from indifference during plea bargaining to having full empathy and finally fighting like hell for a powerless victim who can't fight for herself.

All of this doesn't mean The Accused is a masterpiece, but is a well written, well crafted movie. The brilliant performance of Jodie Foster carries the film, and it left me thinking and very satisfied. It is a movie that gives the members of society a chance to examine their consciences. No means no.

Jodie Foster hits a home run in her Oscar-winning performance in this outstanding film.

Foster epitomizes the low class girl,coming from a broken home and rapidly going nowhere at all in her totally dysfunctional life.

When she is brutally gang raped at a bar, the onus is put on her. Her miserable life, her dress, her drinking, her use of drugs shall all be used against her in a trial.

She is angered when her attorney settles for a lower plea, but is up to the task when the former realized her mistake and will now prosecute those who provoked the brutal attack by their screaming and encouraging the participants.

The rape scene is self is brutally staged but unfortunately that what was needed here.

This hard-hitting drama reflects a tragic social issue of our times.

The Accused is directed by Jonathan Kaplan and written by Tom Topor. It stars Jodie Foster and Kelly McGillis. Music is by Brad Fiedel and cinematography by Ralf D. Bode.

After Sarah Tobias (Foster) suffers a brutal rape in a road side bar one night, prosecutor Kathryn Murphy (McGillis) takes up the case to bring the perpetrators to justice. Including the ones who encouraged and cheered on the attack.

Criminal Solicitation.

Some have bemoaned The Accused as being a TV movie type production, while the thematic edge of Sarah Tobias being a "good time gal, even slutty", has caused consternation in highbrow circles. What garbage!

Depressingly based around an incident that occurred in Massachusetts 1983, The Accused is still a powerful film watching experience over twenty years after it was released. It finds Kaplan and Topor refusing to sweeten the meal, it is what it is, uncompromising in detail whilst casting sleazy like shadows over the justice system and the marginalisation of Sarah Tobias. In fact, as an observation of the law, with its plea bargains and shifting around of character judgements and actions, it's a potent piece of cinema.

Foster is terrific and completely deserved her Oscar win for Best Actress. She has Sarah as tough and demonstrative in her belief that justice has not been served, that because she likes a drink, a tug of weed and a flirt with the boys, she is fair game to be ganged raped whilst others cheer on like Neanderthals. The energy and raw emotion shown by Foster is fantastic and a lesson in acting that budding actresses should study. McGillis was overlooked for praise, but she also is wonderful, brilliantly written by Topor, Kathryn Murphy in McGillis' hands builds from a weary cynic at the beginning to a force of nature later in the courtroom. The scenes there between Foster and McGillis are enough to shatter your heart.

Opening the film with a scene that sees Sarah screaming and fleeing from the bar, her clothes torn, the makers rightly show the actual rape at the end of the film in flashback form. It's harrowing and devastating, and the point where the picture achieves all the goals it set itself. If you are sitting there thinking about TV production value or predictability? Then quite frankly you really haven't been paying attention. 9/10

Partially based on a true story, this film begins with a young woman named "Sarah Tobias" (Jodie Foster) running out of a nightclub onto a nearby road in an attempt to flag down a passing motorist to escape from the men who had just gang-raped her. From there the scene shifts to a hospital where she then has to endure the humiliating experience of a rape examination. It's during this time that she is introduced to a woman by the name of "Kathryn Murphy" (Kelly McGillis) who works for the District Attorney's office there in Washington state and needs to know if there is enough evidence available for her to initiate a criminal trial against those who took part in the rape. But it doesn't end there as, a little while later, she also has to consider whether to prosecute some other men who cheered the rapists on. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was an interesting film which bore a loose resemblance to an actual case that happened in Massachusetts in 1983. Be that as it may, from what I understand the rather graphic rape scene proved to be quite traumatic for some of the actors involved and for her performance Jodie Foster was awarded an Academy Award for Best Actress. That being said, while I thought that this was a pretty good film, I recommend it for mature audiences only.

Gang Rapists are brought to Justice, but what about those Loathsome, Wretched, Disgusting Bystanders who Vicariously and by Proxy take part in the Assault. This is the Theme here and Caring, Sensitives will have Little Doubt that it is Sinful if not Illegal.

Jodie Foster's Oscar Winning Performance is, arguably, Justified because She no less then Dominates every Scene. However, this is partly Due to the Weakness of the Film as a whole. The Men Accused, Trial, and backdrop of the Movie are all so Flat, Uninteresting and Unremarkable it Weakens the Exposition and the actual Rape Scene seems Exploitative.

A Social Sickness ("a rape is reported in the US every 6 minutes") that certainly is Ineffectually Addressed and Approached is in dire Need of Our Attention and Consultation.