When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Steven R. Hardin (Michael Douglas) is a young judge in Southern California. He has a suburban family with wife Emily (Sharon Gless). He has to release an obvious guilty defendant due to a technicality of a garbage truck. After another case where a technicality let loose two child killers and they end up killing another child, his mentor Judge Benjamin Caulfield (Hal Holbrook) brings him into the Star Chamber where presumably the guilty cannot hide from the truth and justice. Det. Harry Lowes (Yaphet Kotto) investigates the series of dead criminals adjudicated not guilty.This is an intriguing idea brought to the big screen. I'm not a fan of dry court drama. There is some of that here but even the Star Chamber is not that compelling. The idea is what's compelling. It would be nice to inject some danger to Hardin. It's not until the last part where he puts himself in danger. Before that, he is a judge in the ivory tower that gets splashed by some of the blood from his decisions. He needs to have some personal stakes. It's too cerebral and too debate team. The father is the only emotional pull for most of the movie.

An unimportant, lousy justice system drama, that has no insight into its subject matter, nor does it showcase any actual justice, it's merely a dull bore, that will be forgotten come tomorrow. The first half an hour is decent, showing the scum committing there crimes, and showing there court trial, but after all that is devolves into this ten middle aged, good citizens sitting round a table and rambling on for the next hour, and that I cannot fathom, why anyone would label this as good is beyond me, because it's a justice film that doesn't actually show much in terms of justice, and the only real violence comes in the last ten minutes, and I was falling asleep by then because the picture was dreadfully paced, it's sluggish, dreary and rather disappointing. Sure there will be worse films, but this is a film that could have been memorable, worthwhile and entertaining, and instead goes down as forgettable and bland.Michael Douglas is good as Judge Stephen Hardin, Yaphet Kotto play's honest Detective Harry Lowes very well and Hal Holbrook (Magnum Force) is effortlessly engaging as Judge Benjamin Caulfield, an important member of the secret society and friend of Hardin. The rest of the cast are pretty good to, making it obvious that the reason the film doesn't work is due to the writing and the narrative, Peter Hyams's direction may have been decent but he also helped write the screenplay, himself and Rodrick Taylor have made a mess of it, unsure on what film they actually wanted to make by including a ridiculous plot point that sees Steven changing his mind about being a part of this society, in the last ten minutes he runs to their secret hideout to inform two child murderers that they are in danger, these scumbags beat him up and probably would have killed him, had he not got a kick in, and headed for the exit which ends in more stupidity.I have no idea what they were thinking with the ending, it's a train-wreck of sorts, that not only lacks sense but lacks an inventive approach and feels heavily forced, most likely thrown in the mix when Hyams realized the picture lacked action full stop, and I did not expect a full on action picture, but I wanted to see some form of justice, a good narrative and insightful dialogue, but after thirty minutes all you get is dull, uninspired material that is so boring, you're tempted to sleep through the remainder of the film. The Star Chamber is forgettable, boring stuff that completely wastes an intriguing premise, by dwelling too much on pointless dialogue, and uninteresting plot devices.

An underpublicized 1980s film about civil rights, vigilantism, and the grey areas between law & justice. For the most part, it is thoroughly gripping and immersive. Peter Hyams' direction is first-rate (he is a wizard at shooting chase sequences from a first-person point-of-view); the script (which he co-wrote) is manipulative, to be sure, but also thought-provoking; Michael Douglas is convincing (if a little too young perhaps); Hal Holbrook (playing a character very similar to "Magnum Force", ten years earlier!) and Yaphet Kotto give solid support. And then we come to the weak, rushed ending. Did they run out of budget of something? I literally dropped half a star from my rating (from *** to **1/2 out of 4) in the last 2 minutes. Perhaps this is the rare case of a movie that is too short for its premise.

The Star Chamber is a film that operates under the premise that the legal system has gone awry and it's up to the judges to apply corrective action to the decisions they officially make in court. Interestingly enough Hal Holbrook who came to that conclusion as Lieutenant Briggs in the Dirty Harry film Magnum Force, is now taking a similar position as a judge.Michael Douglas as a young Superior Court Judge in Los Angeles has reached the same crossroads. After a couple of decisions on procedure that resulted in criminals being cut loose, he starts to question whether the whole criminal justice system is out of whack. That's when Hal Holbrook tells him about a most secret society.A panel of nine judges have taken it upon themselves to overrule their own rulings. Douglas eagerly joins them, but certain things to go off course for him and he questions whether he's made the right career move.The cases that Douglas came a cropper on is stuff straight out of the Law and Order episode file. In that series sometimes I think the judge's rulings are somewhat bizarre. Of course in that series it just makes Jack McCoy and his successor try all the harder to win.It's a nice film, but I do get the feeling that Star Chamber is a Law and Order episode stretched out for a feature film.