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The plot: The movie concerns the McMartin family; a normal enough clan as families go. They’re fairly average and seem to be beyond reproach as far as matters illegal are concerned. However, because life sometimes is horrible to the good people, they are all accused of child molestation. You see, the McMartins run a daycare center and, after a child comes home with strange marks on his bottom, the accusations begin to mount. All of the family, including the old and wheelchair-bound grandmother, are arrested and placed in prison based solely on the amount of people that come forward with suddenly remembered instances of abuse and harm. It’s ridiculous and any sane person could see that this is absolute madness, but those kinds of people are never around when you need them. The intricacies of the legalities are way to complicated to get into here, but suffice to say there are numerous trials and setbacks before the verdict is finally handed down. Oh, and the great James Woods plays their ambulance-chasing lawyer who grows a heart and some self-respect during the course of the trial. Woods gives what I consider to be his best performance in this, so for nothing else, check it out for him. See some acting done right.
Watching this film, not only do feel nothing but the highest degrees of sympathy for the very put-upon McMartins, but you also gain a much higher understanding of how exactly something like this could happen. It’s very much like an avalanche picking up speed and more snow as it barrels down a mountain. It’s scary to watch as the hysteria grows and it makes you glad that you don’t work with children. In this movie, that very act is portrayed like holding a live hand-grenade.
In closing, I just want to say that truly believe that the McMartins are innocent. They happened to be caught in a hurricane of hysteria and insanity that has only been rivaled by the aforementioned Salem and McCarthy trials and I hope that in the next life, they are heralded as kings. For what they went through, they deserve it. As for Condit… well, we may never really know what happened. It’s been made abundantly clear that he’s not going to be giving the police any help. But as I said, it doesn’t really matter if we get the truth or not. In the court of public opinion, he did it, hands down. And that’s good enough for us.
