A film centered around the Chinese judicial system. Sounds like a real winner, huh? Actually, it wasn’t half-bad. Richard Gere stars as Jack Moore, a brilliant attorney. I guess he’s so renown, the film just assumes you’ll automatically know, “Oh, he must be a lawyer.” But you don’t. (I found out after reading the “production notes”).Jack travels abroad to close the first satellite communications deal with the Chinese government. After a night of booze and a little hanky-panky with a foreign beauty, he finds himself in quite a predicament.His one night stand is found murdered with all of the evidence pointing to him. Despite his innocence, he’s arrested and thrown in a Chinese jail (if you can even call it that). It’s more like a dungeon.Jack gets shot at, gets the crap beaten out of him and is locked in a pitch black cell for the majority of the day.Where is the American Embassy to lend a helping hand? To hook him up with Marsh Clark? They can’t interfere, Jack is told. Because he was caught in China, Jack must be tried through the Chinese judicial system, with a court-appointed attorney.Jack’s a talented lawyer, yet he’s surprised by this turn of events? To make matters worse, he doesn’t speak the language, at all. Half of the characters in the film do, however, and cause a small portion of the flick’s dialogue to be in subtitles. Personally, I think this is distracting and draws attention away from the action on the screen. Although a chunk of the film’s dialogue is in Chinese, there is one phrase that all of the characters can say in English: leniency for those who confess, severity for those who resist. And they do say it – over and over.Jack’s lawyer, Shen Yuelin (Bai Ling), immediately files a guilty plea, insisting that this will save his life. Confused? Don’t worry, I was too.In China, if a person is guilty of a capital offense, they are shot within a week of sentencing and the cost of the bullet is billed to their family. The average trial lasts only four days (or less) and the conviction rate is 99 percent. Basically, he’s got little-to-not-a-chance-in-hell of returning to the U.S. alive. Or, so you’re led to believe. Somehow, against all odds, Jack survives. What a guy! I’m not going to give away too much, but his understanding of the law ends up saving his life. Jack returns to the U.S. intact with a new appreciation of his freedom. If he had kept his pants on he wouldn’t have gotten himself into this little dilemma in the first place.Despite a pinch of overdramatic acting, and a dash of subtitles, the film really was fascinating. And they show Richard Gere’s butt…..twice. It makes you think long and hard about how fair the U.S. judicial system really is.