Rod Steiger stars as a high-voltage vigilante in GUILTY AS CHARGED, a dark, distasteful satire in the grisly tradition of Paul Bartel's EATING RAOUL.
Steiger plays meat mogul Ben Kallin, who went around the bend sometime after his family was ax-murdered by a recently paroled killer. Having built his own private death row in the basement of his high-volume butchering plant, he kidnaps ex-cons who got what he judges to be too-light sentences for
their crimes. Kallin then invites the families of their victims to witness the ex-cons' executions in his custom-made, throne-like, home-brew electric chair, featuring a huge set of angel wings, from which, Kallin is convinced, the criminals will ascend to heaven once they have repented for their
crimes to the families.
The film cuts awkwardly from Kallin's killings to the corrupt antics of gubernatorial hopeful Mark Stanford (Lymon Ward), who solicits campaign contributions from major-league polluters with the promise of a blind eye once he is elected. Standford's representatives approach Kallin, whose rectitude
at first prevents him from participating in the shady under-the-table payoffs. Kallin changes his mind, however, when he learns, from pretty parole officer, Kimberly (Heather Graham) working on Stanford's campaign, that Stanford is an unabashed supporter of the death penalty. What he doesn't know
is that Stanford has a personal reason for adding the capital punishment plank to his platform.
At the start of his campaign, Stanford murdered his secretary-mistress, who had threatened to expose his political improprieties, and framed a mugger for the crime. Frustrated by his inability to win himself an appeal, the mugger breaks out of prison only to fall into Kallin's hands. His freelance
frying is to be witnessed by the governor-to-be at the climax, barring a last-minute reprieve from Stanford's embittered wife, Liz (Lauren Hutton), and maid, Edna (Poltergeist's tiny psychic Zelda Rubinstein), who have been accumulating incriminating evidence against Stanford.
Despite some moments of grim, dark humor, GUILTY AS CHARGED is one of those one-joke satires whose joke runs out long before the movie does. Charles Gale's screenplay starts with an intriguing premise, but the execution proves to be both predictable and uninspired. The dialogue and characters are
also dull and uninvolving. Witty repartee throughout the film generally consists of one character insulting another and the other character screaming back, "Shut up!"
Other parts of GUILTY AS CHARGED are padded with long-winded monologues from Kallin, rendered in the overbearing, scenery-devouring style that has been the hallmark of Steiger's acting career. The supporting cast is generally competent if similarly uninspired, though Graham, an angelic beauty, is
eminently watchable throughout. Coming closest to stealing the film is, of all people, veteran composer and musician Isaac Hayes, who has some truly funny moments as one of Kallin's crazed henchmen and musically contributes the film's funky, hummable closing theme.
A presentation of record company IRS Media's filmmaking arm, GUILTY AS CHARGED boasts a mood-setting score by, guitarist Steve Bartek of Oingo Boingo (of which BATMAN composer Danny Elfman is also an alumnus) and additional contributions from Animal Logic. Byrnadette DiSanto's expressionistic
production design and Richard Michalack's shadowy cinematography are also first-rate. Unfortunately, however, none of that compensates for the mock-outrageous mediocrity of the film overall.
GUILTY AS CHARGED is yet another offbeat B-movie that's all dressed up with no place to go. (Violence, profanity, adult situations.)
