True Believer

James Woods is easily one of the most charismatic actors working in Hollywood today. He basically plays only two roles: a psychotic, or a scumbag with principles. In True Believer, he appears as the latter. Eddie Dodd (Woods, sporting a ponytail, no less) was once a fiery civil liberties lawyer, who scored major victories for minority rights and free speech. But as the film opens, his ideals have slipped a notch or two--now he gets crack and coke dealers off for large sums of money. When an eager college kid (Robert Downey, Jr.) arrives in Greenwich Village to work with his hero, he discovers that Woods has become a lowlife. After a few sturm und drang scenes between the cynic and the idealist kid, the pair take on a murder case that involved a gang-style slaying in Chinatown. The unraveling of the mystery makes for a reasonably tolerable excuse to make the popcorn, but the real reason to watch True Believer, as in many of Woods' movies, is the man himself. Recommended. (R. Pitman)