Scum - 1979

Scum is really a little treasure of a Movie

It is set in a British Borstal for young offenders.
By offenders I mean thieves, killers, rapists, assailants of all kinds and other examples of teenage psychotic idiosyncrasy.

I really stumbled upon this one
I really enjoyed it
It takes about 15 minutes to settle into the accent. Once you're in...you're hooked.

The violence is absolutely primitive.
No time for CGI nor censorship.

These guys hate each other and its all about survival.

Bonus points for
-Drugs
-Violence (all kinds of beating)
-blatant display of racism
-blatant display of responding to racism
-the most awesome cursing in history
-The UK in the 70's, the only worse place in the world at the time was probably somewhere around Congo, or maybe Central Eastern Asia, or Chile or....well, you see what I mean, it kinda sucked balls.
-oh, and gang rape (if you find me a recent non-pornographic movie where 2 teenage boys gang-rape another one...i'll send you a medal)

It's the kind of movie that was once made, and would never see the light today under the current PC climate.
according to imdb, they tried to ban it. I am not surprised. I am glad they didn't though.

I have to give it a personal 8.5, only for the language.
I was amazed from beginning to end.

And Justice For All - 1979

And Justice For All

I decided to watch this movie for 2 reasons
1)I knew the name from the decent Metallica album (not their best, I know, I know, but there's some great stuff in there, like "Blackened" but this is a whole different story
2)Al Pacino - Yes, although he now spends his career either resting or overacting, in the 70's and 80's he was fucking awesome
3)It's a lesser known movie for those of my generation, I discovered it by chance
Did I say 2 reasons?

Anyway

The movie tells the tale of a lawyer who believes in helping people.
A rebel in the courtroom, litigating against tough unfair or bizarre judges.
One of these judges is an absolute asshole.
Another one wants to kill himself and keeps displaying heavy suicidal behavior.

The lawyers are also pretty crazy
His best friend ends up in the loony bin after one of his clients kills again
Another of his colleagues is too busy to do his job - hence the moral lesson.

Overall, it was a way too moralistic movie about how crooked the legal system is and how the real heroes (lawyers) can save the values of the founding fathers of the great U-S-of-A.

However, the setting
-crappy courtrooms
-dirty streets, corridors, people
-the slang...aah the slang of the 70's, I could write a thesis about this
-no gratuitous token black guy
-the cars
makes it all worthy.

On my personal barometer I would rate it as a 7/10. On IMDB it's at 7.2.
definitely watchable, educative (especially if you love the period), but not legendary.

Trailer