Rating: PG13
Genre:
Drama
Theatrical Release: 12/25/1989(USA)
Release Date: 05/20/2003
Dubbed: English
Sound: DS
Run Time: 126 min
Flags: Adult Situations, Questionable for Children, Adult Language, Profanity
Distributor/Studio: Live/Artisan
Jessica Lange plays an attorney whose affable Hungarian-immigrant father
Armin Mueller-Stahl is arrested. He is threatened with deportation for lying about his activities during World War II; part of the charge is that
Mueller-Stahl was a Nazi collaborationist, guilty of wartime atrocities. Absolutely convinced that her father is being railroaded by a revenge-seeking Hungarian communist government,
Lange handles
Mueller-Stahl's defense, expertly blowing huge holes in prosecuting attorney
Frederic Forrest's case. But in doing her own research,
Lange discovers that her father has spent a lifetime paying off a blackmailer. Why? In contrast to the fervency of his earlier
Z,
Costa-Gavras refuses to make things easy by proselytizing in
The Music Box (nor does screenwriter
Joe Esterhas indulge in his usual right-between-the-eyes fervency). Everything in the film is offered on the same calm, collected level, making the ultimate horror of the story all the more effective.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide