The most unsympathetic/evil characters are all female

The murderer, Carolyn (the self-serving, adulterous careerist) and the defendant who was viciously abusing her son.

Almost all the male characters are jerks, and mostly a mixture of mildly corrupt and/or incompetent, but none of them are truly evil (Rusty is genuinely regretful about his affair, and of the lot arguably Judge Lytton, the otherwise admirable judge, is the worst for having taken bribes in the past). And even some of the mildly corrupt characters like Lipranzer and Stern are doing the wrong things (withholding evidence, and effectively blackmailing a judge) for the right reasons, to clear Rusty's name, and some of the seemingly incompetent characters, like the coroner, Dr Kumagi, are closer to being right, in terms of his 'setting-up a fake rape' theory, than he or the rest of the court realise. And as ambitious and back-stabbing as Motto and Della Guardia are, neither of them are particularly corrupt or wicked.

Yes, Rusty's wheelchair-using colleague seems decent enough, although we don't really see much of her, but otherwise the women in this film are the most objectionable characters.

This is not a feminist or even misogynist point, just an interesting observation, since in most films it is usually the men, whether good or bad, whose actions drive the narrative. Whereas in this instance, the men seem to be flailing about like headless chickens pointing fingers at one another.


Did IQs just drop sharply while I was away?