This is an A list cast with matching performances. The story is run of the mill but it works. The right level of nastiness, tears, agony, despair and surprise. This is Baldwin in his prime.

I've just watched this again and know for definite that it sits around a rating of 7 without doubt. I can only assume the lack of shootouts and explosions has meant it gets a lower score. But this is a solid 7 and I do recommend it.

When Annie Laird is selected as a juror in a big Mafia trial, she is forced by someone known as "The Teacher" to persuade the other jurors to vote "not guilty".

He threatens to kill her son if she doesn't commit. When the trial is over, he can't let her go...

There are two big problems with this movie, they should have trimmed the ending by at least ten minutes, and Baldwin should not have got his motivation from the T-1000.

There are times when he is so autonomous, you can almost hear the mechanics grinding in the background, which is a shame, because in the first act, he is really convincing, but when we find out he's the Teacher, it's as if he's expecting the audience to want him go that little more Psychotic.

Moore is as good as she always is, convincing as the parent who is worried for her son's well being. But when Baldwin and Moore are on screen together, it just doesn't convince. You do think every now and again that they will get together at the end, but thats only because the fear factor that Baldwin had in the first act vanishes.

Gandolfini is great in this movie though, and shows what a talent he is. Just a shame he isn't in the movie a lot more.

There is some good camera-work and good performances, even from your token mobsters, who look like extras from Goodfellas.

It's not a bad film, entirely watchable, just not plausible enough.

Mobster Louie Boffano (Tony Lo Bianco) is on trial for murder. Annie Laird (Demi Moore) is an artist selected as a juror in the big trial. She and her son Oliver (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is soon being tracked by mob muscle Eddie (James Gandolfini). She's wine-and-dine by a rich art dealer but he turns out to be someone working for Boffano. He's known as "The Teacher" (Alec Baldwin). She is shocked at his veiled threats against Oliver and her friend Juliet (Anne Heche).

This is a bunch of very broad characters in a wannabe thriller. Moore as the protective mother is functional. Baldwin is good when he's creepy but he loses something as a maniac. Gandolfini does some good acting that foreshadows better things to come for him. The story needs to be simplified. The first half is fine but the movie deteriorates. When the trial finishes, the movie needs a reason to go on, and on, and on. So the movie change the driving force from the trial to a psycho Teacher. The change lost me a little and I stopped caring.