What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!
Last night, if you discovered that you couldn’t get any sleep around two in the morning, you could have turned to Showtime and watched the 1987 film, From The Hip.
In From the Hip, Judd Nelson plays a character named Robin Weathers. Of course, his nickname is Stormy. Robin has just graduated from law school and is working at a prestigious law firm. He’s ambitious, he’s outspoken, and he’s totally frustrated. As his co-workers (played, quite well, by David Alan Grier and Dan Monahan) continually remind him, nobody gets to try a case during their first year out of law school. They advise him to be patient and to wait his turn.
However, a man who is capable of being patient would not be nicknamed Stormy. It just wouldn’t make any sense. So, Stormy Weathers schemes his way into the courtroom. One morning, he intentionally withholds information from the senior partners, going out of his way to keep them from realizing that a trial is scheduled to begin that afternoon. When senior partner Craig Duncan (Darren McGavin) discovers what Stormy has done, he fires him and makes sure that he never get hired at another law firm … oh wait. No, he doesn’t because that would make too much sense. Instead, he allows Stormy to try the case because, at this point, Stormy is the only one who knows anything about it.
The case is a simple assault case that involves two bankers and should be resolved easily but Stormy manages to drag it out for several days and his flamboyant style catches the attention of the media. The other partners in the law firm — who are all old and boring — want to fire Stormy but Stormy’s client says that, if Stormy is fired, he’ll take his business and his money elsewhere. Stormy becomes a minor celebrity but — in a rather clever little twist — it turns out that he and the prosecuting attorney are old friends from law school and they conspired to make each other look good.
Anyway, Stormy is now so famous that he gets assigned to defend a college professor, named Benoit (John Hurt), who has been accused of murder. When it quickly becomes obvious that Benoit is not only guilty but will probably murder again, Stormy is forced to choose between ambition and morality…
When my friend Evelyn and I first started to watch From the Hip last night, I really thought I was going to hate it. The hot pink neon credits screamed, “Bad 80s movie!” and, because I happen to know quite a few lawyers, I tend to be a 100 times more critical of movies about lawyers than I am when it comes to movies about, say, homicidal fishermen.
And, honestly, From The Hip is a heavily flawed film. Judd Nelson is miscast and the scenes with his politically conscious girlfriend (Elizabeth Perkins) are painfully shallow and reek of limousine liberalism. But, if you can get through the weak opening, the film itself is watchable and enjoyable in a dumb sort of way. John Hurt does a great job as a sociopath and, miscast as he may be, it’s still fun to watch Nelson go insane in court.
From The Hip is not a great film but, in its way, it’s an enjoyable little time capsule. Believe it or not, there was a time when Judd Nelson starred in a movies that were actually released in theaters.
Previous Insomnia Files:
Pingback: Insomnia File #9: Born Killers (dir by Morgan J. Freeman) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #10: Eye For An Eye (dir by John Schlesinger) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #11: Summer Catch (dir by Mike Tollin) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #12: Beyond The Law (dir by Larry Ferguson) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File No. 14: Promise (dir by Glenn Jordan) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File No. 15: George Wallace (dir by John Frankenheimer) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomina File No. 16: Kill The Messenger (dir by Michael Cuesta) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File No. 17: The Suburbans (dir by Donal Lardner Ward) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File No. 18: Only The Strong (dir by Sheldon Lettich) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File No. 19: Great Expectations (dir by Alfonso Cuaron) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File No. 20: Casual Sex? (dir by Geneviève Robert) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #21: Truth (dir by James Vanderbilt) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #22: Insomnia (dir by Christopher Nolan) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #23: Death Do Us Part (dir by Nicholas Humphries) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #24: A Star is Born (dir by Frank Pierson) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #25: The Winning Season (dir by James C. Strouse) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #26: Rabbit Run (dir by Jack Smight) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #27: Remember My Name (dir by Alan Rudolph) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomina File #28: The Arrangement (dir by Elia Kazan) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: A Horror Insomnia File #29: Day of the Animals (dir by William Girdler) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: A Suspenseful Insomnia File #30: Still Of The Night (dir by Robert Benton) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #31: Arsenal (dir by Steve C. Miller) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #32: Smooth Talk (dir by Joyce Chopra) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #33: The Comedian (dir by Taylor Hackford) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #34: The Minus Man (dir by Hampton Fancher) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #35: Donnie Brasco (dir by Mike Newell) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #36: Punchline (dir by David Seltzer) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #37: Evita (dir by Alan Parker) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #27: Remember My Name (dir by Alan Rudolph) - You Can Quit Now
Pingback: Insomnia File #38: Six: The Mark Unleashed (dir by Kevin Downes) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #39: Disclosure (dir by Barry Levinson) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #41: Elektra (dir by Rob Bowman) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #42: Revenge (dir by Tony Scott) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #43: Legend (dir by Brian Helgeland) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #44: Cat Run (dir by John Stockwell) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #45: The Pyramid (dir by Gary Kent) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #46: Enter the Ninja (dir by Menahem Golan) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #47: Downhill (dir by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #49: Mystery Date (dir by Jonathan Wacks) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #50: Zola (dir by Janicza Bravo) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #51: Ira & Abby (dir by Robert Clary) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #52: The Next Karate Kid (dir by Christopher Cain) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #53: A Nightmare on Drug Street (dir by Traci Wald Donat) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File No. 54: Jud (dir by Gunther Collins) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File No. 55: FTA (dir by Francine Parker) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #56: Exterminators of the Year 3000 (dir by Giuliano Carmineo) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #57: Boris Karloff: The Man Behind The Monster (dir by Thomas Hamilton) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #58: The Haunting of Helen Walker (dir by Tom McLoughlin) | Through the Shattered Lens
Pingback: Insomnia File #59: True Spirit (dir by Sarah Spillane) | Through the Shattered Lens