(1992)
4
Michael Costello
Told in flashbacks as the powerful lawyer and chief assistant to Senator Joseph McCarthy lies in a hospital bed dying of AIDS, Citizen Cohn covers brilliant lawyer Roy Cohn's rise to power. Instinctively gifted with a grasp of the ways in which innuendo, half-truth, and lies could be used to destroy political opponents while advancing his career, the brutally efficient Cohn was far more frightening than the foolish, often drunken senator, who was supposedly his patron. With the passing of the red-baiting era, Cohn transforms himself into one of the most powerful attorneys in the country, expanding his vile bag of legal tricks to represent a motley crew of wealthy reprobates including more than a few mobsters. The film also touches on Cohn's carefully concealed homosexuality, a predilection which -- during that benighted era -- could have hurt his tough-guy image and his business. One of the film's most amusingly ironic scenes is a small dinner attended only by J. Edgar Hoover, Francis Cardinal Spellman of New York, and Cohn, three staunchly conservative anti-communists who publicly deplored homosexuality, although two were gay and the other a cross-dresser. As Cohn's borderline legal maneuvers begin to fun afoul of the law and AIDS slowly eats away at his body, one almost feels a twinge of sympathy for the man. James Woods has never been more brilliant in a part that seems to have been written specifically for him. To see him weave his way through the contorted labyrinth of this monster's mind is a privilege. The huge and talented cast includes standout work by Joe Don Baker as McCarthy, the blacklisted Lee Grant as Cohn's possessive mother, and Joseph Bologna as Walter Winchell.
Citizen Cohn on AllMovie
Citizen Cohn (1992)
