When I was in college I used to watch a lot of Ally McBeal (1997-2002) while waiting for video files to either export or compress. I loved Ally McBeal. I couldn’t get enough of its combination of soapy romance and quirky characters. It was a weird and funky show whose themes of growing up resonated with me. I got how Ally felt while looking for love. I understood that friends are often more steadfast and true than family.
But before writer David E. Kelley created Ally McBeal he collaborated with Bob Clark on the film From The Hip (1987). This Judd Nelson vehicle plays like two episodes of Ally McBeal squished together. It possess all of the far fetched courtroom antics, silly asides, moving arguments and a Boston location that became the hallmarks of Ally McBeal. From The Hip literally finds Kelley honing his craft; determining what works and what doesn’t.
But unlike Ally McBeal there is no long running serialized love story. The focus of From The Hip is almost exclusively on courtroom drama. There is no fragile human character for the audience to relate to or root for. Judd Nelson’s “Stormy” Weathers is more Richard Fish than Ally McBeal. The film, which feels like episodic television, has a disjointed quality that unintentionally subverts the dramatic stakes of the narrative.
I’ve loved Ally McBeal from years and yet it has taken me all this time to watch the film that ostensibly started it all. From The Hip is the humble beginning. The David E. Kelley “thing” that caught the zeitgeist a decade later is just barely percolating in From The Hip. It isn’t a bad movie, it just isn’t very good either.
In a way its biggest fault is that Kelley’s courtroom shenanigans are written to be too big and broad. Kelley and Clark challenge what is believable too often. The result is that the audience is essentially kept at a distance from the dramatic action. When the viewer should be empathizing with Weathers they are too far removed from the arc of the film to be properly invested.
Clark, for his part, manages to coax some very good performances from his all-star cast. The issue is that no amount of great acting can elevate material that is this disjointed and tonally varied. Even John Hurt’s eerie performance suffers at the hands of the script when he goes blotto during the climax. Just when the viewer should be caught up in the suspense the film throws up its over the top bravura and rejects the viewer’s empathy.
