the accused

Director: jonathan kaplan

Actor: kelly mcgillis,jodie foster,bernie coulson,leo rossi

Data Published: Fri Oct 14 1988

Genres: Crime,Drama

Key Words: rape,blaming the victim,charged with rape,female frontal nudity,pinball machine

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094608/

WIKI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Accused_(1988_film)

Description: The Accused is a movie starring Kelly McGillis, Jodie Foster, and Bernie Coulson. After a young woman suffers a brutal gang rape in a bar one night, a prosecutor assists in bringing the perpetrators to justice, including the ones...

Plot: On April 18, 1987, at a bar, working-class woman Sarah Tobias is gang raped by several drunk bar patrons, while onlookers cheer them on. Assistant district attorney Kathryn Murphy is assigned to the rape case. Her superior instructs Murphy to offer a plea bargain with the rape defendants that requires some jail time. They make a plea bargain to charges of reckless endangerment, and are sentenced to prison. Sarah is enraged by the deal, as there is no acknowledgment on the record that the men raped her. Sarah rams a pickup truck after recognizing its driver as one of the patrons from the bar who had been cheering during the rape, and being outraged by his crude proposition of her. Her injuries require hospitalization. After this, Murphy decides to prosecute the men who cheered the rape for criminal solicitation. Sarah's friend Sally, a waitress at the bar where the rape took place, picks three men out of a line-up as those who encouraged the attackers. They get three different defense attorneys for the ensuing trial. Sarah testifies that she was raped. College student Kenneth Joyce, a friend of one of the rapists, testifies to watching the rape before he made a 911 call to notify police. After Murphy's closing statement and a single summation from the three defense lawyers, the jury deliberates for a long time. They ask several times for Joyce's testimony to be reread to them. In the end, the jury convicts the three defendants. As the trial provides testimony and evidence that the men raped Sarah, the three men already serving prison time for reckless endangerment are unlikely to be granted parole.