Everybody Wins

A new film boasting a screenplay by Arthur Miller (Death of a Salesman) is going to be interesting, and Everybody Wins is always at least that. Nick Nolte stars as Tom O'Toole, a hard-working, corruption-fighting attorney in a small New England town. When he's contacted by a strange woman named Angela (Debra Winger), he finds himself caught up in a mysterious case which involved the brutal murder of the town doctor. Angela convinces Tom that an innocent man was sent to jail, and the cover-up goes all the way to the top of local government. Unfortunately, Angela is mentally disturbed, and her split personality jerks Tom back and forth both in his attempts to get to the bottom of the case, and in his emotions (naturally, he falls in love with her.) Angela eventually leads Tom to the killer, a wonderfully weird creation named Jerry, who has set up a church in an old mill where he worships a huge statue of a Confederate major. When the pieces of the puzzle finally fall into place, the outcome is not quite what Tom or we expected. Everybody Wins has a few plot holes, and Nolte and Winger aren't exactly top-notch actors (although Jack Warden is on hand as a judge, and that's always a treat), but overall this is a couple of notches above the standard thriller, and is therefore recommended. (R. Pitman) [DVD Review—Dec. 13, 2005—Sony, 97 min., R, $14.95—Making its first appearance on DVD, 1990's Everybody Wins features a decent transfer and Dolby Digital surround sound, but no DVD extras. Bottom line: a decent film notable for its screenplay by playwright Arthur Miller, this is recommended for larger collections.]