GUILTY AS SIN

GUILTY AS SIN (Directed by Sidney Lumet. Stars Rebecca DeMornay, Don Johnson, Stephen Lang, Jack Warden.)

I hate to give away the plot, but the guilty party in this instance is clearly Sidney Lumet. The veteran director who brought us two of the greatest cinematic court room dramas, Twelve Angry Men and The Verdict, has ventured back into the legal system. But where his earlier efforts were dark, powerful, superbly acted and aesthetically austere examinations of the world of justice, Guilty As Sin is an exercise in technicalities that makes you want to shout out "Objection!" by the time you've read the title credits.

The phrase Guilty As Sin has that flash Jagged Edge ring to it, and it never strays far from the Joe Ezterhaus 'did he or didn't he?' prototype. Rebecca DeMornay takes the Glenn Close part of a sexy lawyer who still hasn't learned the golden rule of a defence practise: fancying your client is no guarantee of his innocence.

She initially refuses when a handsome playboy (Don Johnson) insists that she should defend him on murder charges, exclaiming "Hasn't anyone ever said no to you?" "Yes," Johnson retorts, "My wife, just before I threw her out the window." But then he says he was just joking, so that's all right. Having a terrible sense of humour is still not a crime in America, as anyone who has seen Hot Shots Part Deux can testify.

Johnson starts out doing the Jeff Bridges part, but soon he gets in on the Glenn Close action too, having the kind of psychotic breakdown that she terrified America with in Fatal Attraction and obsessively hounding his lawyer around the halls of justice. The problem is that neither Johnson or DeMornay has an iota of Close's thespian skills. It is like watching TV soap actors leaping at their chance for a big scene.

DeMornay's descent from cool lawyer to hysterical victim is conveyed by loss of control of her lips and Johnson's breakdown is like something out of Star Trek, with Captain Kirk taken over by aliens and forced to use every muscle in his face.

It is shot like Interior Design: The Movie. Everyone lives in immense apartments where dust never settles and for some reason they still haven't got round to unpacking their belongings (apart from delightfully expensive objects d'art on the glass coffee table). There is so much chrome and marble in the courtroom it looks like an executive bathroom.

Against this opulent backdrop, the acting and dialogue are so lurid and predictable that the whole thing could almost be a spoof, if only it were funny.

Sidney Lumet's only chance is to plead temporary insanity.