Music Box (1989) - film review

When she learns that her father, Mike Laszlo, has been indicted for alleged war crimes during World War II, high-flying lawyer Ann Talbot resolves to defend him.  According to the Prosecution, Laszlo was not an insignificant office worker before he fled from his native Hungary in the 1940s, but a willing instrument of the Nazi war machine, killing Jews and gypsies with a psychopathic bloodlust.  To Ann Talbot, this account of her father’s past is ludicrous: how could the man she has known and loved all her life possibly be such an ogre?  Convinced of her father’s innocence, she skilfully attacks the case for the prosecution.  But then she discovers that her father has been blackmailed for several years.  On a visit to Hungary to receive testimony from another prosecution witness, she discovers the truth of her father’s past in an antique music box…

Although less substantial and stylish than Costa-Gavras’ previous political dramas, Music Box manages to be a compelling film, thanks mainly to a star performance from Jessica Lange.  The film’s deliberately slow, understated approach allows its dramatic conclusion to have the maximum emotional impact, showing the folly of unconditional love with an almost callous brutality yet also a harrowing poignant humanity.  As a courtroom drama, Music Box is not a bad offering, although its overly restrained direction and scripting denies it the greater impact is might have made.  The courtroom scenes don’t quite convey the horror of the alleged atrocities and so much is left to Jessica Lange to generate the drama and sense of emotional conflict.  Although the film is not Costa-Gavras’ best, it is worth seeing, and not just on account of Ms Lange’s near-Oscar winning performance.  The film also gives some appreciation of the horrendously complex nature of belated war crime trials, where vested political interests and the overwhelming desire for justice can so easily result in an unsafe conviction.

© James Travers 2004

Write a review for this film...

What do you think of this film?