Time for this masterpiece to be rediscovered!
In my moviegoing history, there are only a handful of films that I found so compelling I had to see a second time that same day; Music Box was one of those films. I could not understand, and still do not, the lukewarm reception it received from critics when it was released. Perhaps the central issue it raised -- what would YOU do if that were your father? -- was too uncomfortable for them, and they found it easier to dismiss the film as just a pretentious courtroom melodrama. I see nothing remotely pretentious or melodramatic about Music Box. It asks one of the most challenging -- and, to this day, unanswered -- questions that anyone who has tried to understand the Holocaust has asked: How could ostensibly normal and loving family men also have been capable of such evil deeds?
Joe Eszterhas may have gotten his big rep for items like Basic Instinct, Showgirls and Jagged Edge, but I think Music Box is far and away his masterpiece.