Movieo
Poster for True Believer

True Believer

Someone got away with murder...until now.

1989 · 1h 45m · R Crime, Drama
Directed by Joseph Ruben

Seen it?

Overview

Eddie Dodd is a burnt out former civil rights lawyer who now specializes in defending drug dealers. Roger Baron, newly graduated from law school, has followed Eddie's great cases and now wants to learn at his feet. With Roger's idealistic prodding, Eddie reluctantly takes on a case of a young Korean man who, according to his mother, has been in jail for eight years for a murder he didn't commit.

Director and cast

Critics on Rotten Tomatoes

Top critics, in their words

All reviews
95%
Tomatometer
Fresh

Woods' angry energy is clarifying as well as terrifying, and when he unleashes it (usually without warning), the effect is to focus our attention where it belongs, not on a suspense story but on the mysteries of human behavior.

Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine
Fresh

When I see Woods on the screen in the first shot of a movie I sort of smile to myself because I know that something strange and offbeat and maybe even inspired is about to happen.

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
Rotten

Ruben relies too heavily on Woods' whirring turbines to power his scenes.

Hal Hinson, Washington Post
Fresh

What counts in Believer is not what happens but how. This is as good a how as any.

Desson Thomson, Washington Post
Fresh

A riveting legal drama.

Time Out

Comments

Talk about the film with other members

More films