Word: hoffman
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...also to use it to wreak vengeance on Nokes' former accomplices, all of whom have gone on to respectable lives. Shakes' job is to persuade their priestly mentor to supply an alibi for the murderers by lying on the witness stand. This offers amusingly gainful employment for Dustin Hoffman as a bumbling defense lawyer. It is all legally preposterous. But Levinson is a slick craftsman, his actors are insinuatingly real, and cinematographer Michael Ballhaus casts a disarmingly believable light on these proceedings. At some low, what's-next level, Sleepers works like, well, gangbusters...
...still would argue the same way I did 10 years ago," Hoffman says...
What an auspicious beginning it had: a captivating plot that centered on the murder of a 15-year-old prostitute; suspects who included a malevolently elegant businessman, a sleazy psychiatrist and a drug-addicted movie star; and, in the starring role, impassioned defense attorney Teddy Hoffman, played by Daniel Benzali as a man of such unwavering rectitude that he made lawyer jokes seem as gauche as postmortem Nixon bashing. And yet with all that going for it, Steven Bochco's Murder One finished last season as the 74th-ranked show in network prime time and seemed fated for dismissal...
...actor wasn't the first choice to replace Benzali's Hoffman, whose steely self-control and dour sanctimony made him almost unbearable by season's end. "Danny's main strength was an enigmatic, very still quality, which I was really attracted to," reflects Bochco. "But he didn't do much beyond that with any particular ease." After approaching too costly stars like Alan Alda and Danny Glover, Bochco settled on LaPaglia, a talented character actor who has made his mark in a number of independent films including Bulletproof Heart and the current Steve Buscemi film Trees Lounge. Bochco then...
...mistress, and the suspect is a demure schoolteacher, Sharon Rooney (Missy Crider) who appears too Kate Moss-frail to have actually pulled any triggers. Frustrated when he's passed over for a promotion in the prosecutors' office, Wyler manages to grab the job of defending her. In turn, Hoffman's former associates recruit the young gun with the star-making case to head their firm while their old boss, we are told, is off in Europe indefinitely to repair his broken marriage...