Let's be realistic.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

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

I knew Donald Lang between the two killings. He was kind, bright, very strong and hard working. He had ape like qualities that Lavar Burton could not emulate, nor should he have tried.Lang was always being victimized by pimps, whores and scumbags wandering the ghetto. Lang had a sense of honor, justice and compassion that his tormentors did not have.I believe he was a lot smarter than most people thought and could understand volumes. He communicated with me by grunts and pointing. I could swear he could understand what I was saying to him.The only time anyone cared to teach him sign language and communication skills was to try him for murder. That never happened. I don't know where Lang is today but I know he's not in the Illinois prison system.He only needed a better understanding of how to deal with the evil people in the world. I really think that he felt that killing people who would rob him was okay. His world was truly a jungle and the laws of the jungle applied to him.Lowell Myers was a fine man. Sorvino did not look like him but captured all of his humanity in the film. Someday I'd like to talk to him about this film. I had a chat with Brian Dennehy who played Lang's boss earlier in his career. It's a great story and should be released on DVD someday. A jail guard from the Cook County jail named Cheserleigh played himself in the film. He too knew Lang

This was an excellent film in so many ways. The acting, the directing, the use of actual facts regarding the legal system and the obstacles faced by handicapped persons (in the form of the deaf characters portrayed by LeVar Burton and Paul Sorvino). I saw the movie when it first appeared on television several years back and then a few years ago it was broadcast again late at night and I taped it. When I watched it again I was once more moved close to tears by the things which Burton's character was forced to endure.On a side note, one of the things this film did unintentionally was to give me the ability to learn how to communicate better with my family members who were hard of hearing. Watching Sorvino as Lowell Myers I paid close attention to how he would carefully form each word and feel the words vibrate along the back of his ears and through his throat and lips. I had an aunt with whom communication for me had been very difficult until I learned to do this, along with looking directly at a person when speaking. Admittedly to speak in such a manner, since it is slower and each word is carefully formed can at times sound mechanical but I cannot argue with the positive results. I have also used a similar method with communicating with people who are just beginning to learn the English language and again it is successful.

i saw this film a very long time ago and its impact was tremendous. so much so that although i had long forgotten the title i had not forgotten the film. only since i have been on the internet have i been able to trace the name of the film and subsequently look out for it on british tv or sky. so far though i have not come across it again. this film is more than worthy of a reshowing and i, for one, would be very pleased to see it again. i would go as far as to say that this film has haunted me for all this time.

I saw this movie tonight for the first time since 1979, when i was a little girl, it was powerful then, and it still is. It still has the ability to make me cry....the ending still has me puzzled. I highly recommend this movie..it gave me a new respect for those of us, who are living with overwhelming disabilities, and still surviving like champions. BTW, Levar Burton is a helluva an actor! Bravo!!! Elaina