Alicia I love this movie so much

Steineded How sad is this?

Lela The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

kapelusznik18 ****SPOILERS*** Film version of the disturbing gang rape that took place in New Bedford MA. in 1983 who's shocking repercussion's are still with us today thirty years after the terrible event. Going out to have a good time at a local Bar, The Mill, after a fight with her live in drug dealing boyfriend Larry, Tom O'Brian, 21 year old Sarah Tobias, Jodie Foster, ends up getting gang raped in the bar's game room on top of the "Slam Dunk" pinball machine. With the case against Sarah's attackers weak in her being a wild and crazy kid involved in drugs and sex parties her attackers end up with nothing more then a slap on their wrists if anything at all. Feeling abused by her attackers and abandonment by the law Sarah get's the assistant D.A Kathryn Murphy, Kelly McGillis, who prosecuted the case to re-try them as well as those patrons in the bar that evening that egged them on in attacking her.With at first hesitant to re-try the case Murphy suffering from guilt feeling in letting her client Sarah Tobias down went full blast to get her justice in the crime that she suffered at the hand of her attackers. Being a somewhat loose woman with a criminal, drug passion, record it took more then court expertise and knowledge of the law to get Sarah the justice that she so rightly deserved. It took an eye whiteness to the gang rape local boy, and good friend of one of the rapists, Ken Joyce, Bernie Coulson, to brake the case wide open: In both Sarah Tobias and Kathryn Murphy's favor.Shocking in not only the crime that was committed in the film but how the victim of the crime was made as if she was the guilty party in bringing up her lifestyle that was anything but perfect. This tactic is used in the defense in many likewise rape trials by defense attorneys in trying to get their clients off: In blaming the victim not the victimizer. In truth the real life story of Sarah Tobias, really Cheryl Araujo, didn't end as happily as in the movie. Forced by threats and intimidation to leave her home in New Bedford with her husband and three children, she wasn't the loose and pot smoking party girl depicted in the film, Cheryl was killed three years later in a car accident while driving her three young daughters to a Christmas party in Miami Florida.

Ben Larson The activist group Femen protests topless. The question is does the objectification of women and attendant arousal of men viewing the protests mute the message. The Accused has the same problem. It is a film about a brutal gang rape. It is shown in detail and for a long time. It is also a film about a real rape; one who trial made a victim out of the victim and heroes out of the rapists. In the film, the story is retold with different results. The film tries to depict events as they should have been,Jodie Foster won an Oscar for her role as the victim. It was a tough role, but she made it work.The question you have to ask yourself while you watch the rape: Is is a turn-on, or can you feel the pain?

Jackson Booth-Millard The female leading star deserved her (second) Oscar for playing the famous Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs, and I had always wanted to see the film that she won her first Oscar, because I heard about what it was about, and I definitely didn't miss out on it. Based on true events, the film opens at a bar, young woman Sarah Tobias (Oscar and Golden Globe winning, and BAFTA nominated Jodie Foster) is running out frantically, while a young man is calling from a telephone box on the opposite side of the road to call the police about an incident, and going to the nearest hospital she is covered in blood and severe bruises, she confirms that she was raped while other drunk spectators cheered it on. District attorney Kathryn Murphy (Top Gun's Kelly McGillis) is assigned to defend her in her case, and off-screen she is successful in putting the gang of rapists, but after this the case is dropped after a plea bargain is made with the guilty men, but this only angers the young woman. Sarah is enraged by this deal, and more specifically because she has not spoken to a court room with her witness statement, but, after a car accident involving one of the men who was cheering in the bar, the case is reignited to attempt the prosecution of the three men who were cheering and solicited the rape. Sarah's friend Sally Fraser (Ann Hearn) works as a waitress at the bar and gives her witness statement in court, that she was aware that a rape was going on but feared to intervene, but she confirms the identities of the men who were cheering it on Kurt (Kim Kondrashoff), Danny (Woody Brown) and Bob Joiner (Steve Antin), they have three attorneys to defend them. Sarah is then called in and questioned by Kathryn to give her personal recollection of the night where she was gang raped, describing in graphic detail what the men penetrating and restraining her and her being helpless to stop it or call for help, and of course recalling the men who cheered it all on. Then the key witness Kenneth 'Ken' Joyce (Bernie Coulson), the young man who called from the telephone box and a supposed friend of the accused men, is called to stand, and as he describes his version of events a flashback shows the entire night as it happened, from beginning to end (the point where the film opened), where Sarah was dressed rather provocatively, held down on the pinball machine, and one at a time raped by three or so men while those accused watched. The testimony from the defence is given to try and convince the jury to allow three "innocent" men to go free, but of course Kathryn fights hard to make it clear that what happened to Sarah cannot be called "nothing", do everything she can to convince them that the young woman was raped and that the men did indeed watch, laugh and encourage it to happen unwatched by the other bar occupants, and in the end the three men are all found guilty and not given parole, so Sarah and Kathryn happy justice is served. Also starring Leo Rossi as Cliff 'Scorpion' Albrect, Carmen Argenziano as D.A. Paul Rudolph, Tom O'Brien as Larry, Peter Van Norden as Attorney Paulsen and Terry David Mulligan as Lieutenant Duncan. McGillis is pretty good as the lawyer who is at first resilient but then determined to get to the bottom of the rape case and prove the truth, but of course the film is all about Foster who is absolutely superb as the young woman abused by both hideous sexual assault and the law system but comes through as a moving and equally determined victim. The story is well written, performed and paced, the court room scenes are as gripping as any I have seen before in other films of a similar standard, and the subject matter means that there are some disturbingly explicit hard to watch moments, but this all combined makes it a distinctive and compelling drama. Jodie Foster was number 23 on The 100 Greatest Movie Stars. Very good!

mbat19 Jodie Foster is a woman who gets gang raped at a pinball machine at a bar in this based on a true story movie that won Oscars. While at the first trial for rape, the perpetrators receive a light sentence, for what Foster believes to be because of her character and how she was dressed - the "she shouldn't have been out at night or dressed that way" excuse. She hires Kelly McGillis to charge the men again and it plays out in court. The movie gives different POV's and shows graphic details of the attack several times. Foster gives an outstanding performance. The actors who play the perpetrators are stereotypes however and it does diminish a bit from the overall film. The movie is a definite roller coaster ride and will stay with you afterwards. A sign of a good movie