'Justice' for All Cable acquits itself well with Showtime's Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas drama, HBO's Dandridge biopic, and a TNT Western by Bruce Fretts Entertainment Weekly August 20/27, 1999 "You need only peruse this year's Emmy nominees for best TV movie -- TNT's Pirates of Silicon Valley, Showtime's The Baby Dance, A&E's Dash and Lilly, and HBO's A Lesson Before Dying and The Rat Pack -- to see that cable dominates this category. Yet each network takes a distinctive approach to its films, as demonstrated by three new offerings: HBO's Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, TNT's You Know My Name, and Showtime's Strange Justice... ...Showtime has made a name for itself lately with such controversy magnets as Bastard Out of Carolina and Lolita. The net's risk-taking reputation will only be enhanced by Strange Justice, a hot-potato take on the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings that was dropped in preproduction by TNT and FX (yes, Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch actually agreed about something.) Expertly adapted by Jacob Epstein (LA Law) from Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson's acclaimed book, Justice wisely doesn't take sides in the debate. There are no flash-backs showing what really happened between the Supreme Court nominee Thomas (Clockers' Delroy Lindo) and his former subordinate Hill (I'll Fly Away's Regina Taylor), who accused him of sexual harassment. Instead, the filmmaker's realize there's no greater conflict than the clash of two individuals, both of whom believe wholeheartedly in what they are saying. This objective approach doesn't mean director Ernest Dickerson (Blind Faith) is afraid to put the drama in a docudrama. In his boldest move, he treats Senate testimony as surreal theater: During Thomas' famous "high tech lynching" speech, Lindo stands up, disrobes, and uses his necktie as a noose. It's hard to top a porn star named Long Dong Silver and a Coke can garnished with pubic hair, but in scenes like this, Justice is stranger -- and more compelling than truth. Mandy Patinkin does admirably subtle work (that's right, you just read the words Mandy Patinkin and subtle in the same sentence) as Kenneth Duberstein, the savvy political operative who pushed the Bush administration's appointee through the Senate. And evocative cameos are contributed by Paul Winfield as the crotchety, Days of Our Lives-addicted Justice Thurgood Marshall and Louis Gossett Jr. as the cigar-sucking, cheek-kissing kingmaker Vernon Jordan. But it's Lindo and Taylor who merit the highest praise. Both tease out the many layers of their character's personalities --stolid private citizens driven to the brink of nervous breakdowns by a runaway train of partisan rumors. These actors would be smart to start preparing their acceptance speeches for next year's Emmys now. Grade: A

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