This is a by-the-numbers tale of political chicanery and fallen idealism, but it works because of several strong performances. James Spader and John Cusack play law-school pals whose college idealism quickly falls away once they reach the real world. Playing against type, Spader is the straight arrow who goes on to work for the Justice Department. Cusack is the slippery conniver who parlays a job as an aide to an ageing senator (Richard Widmark) into a springboard to elective office, all the while cutting corners, compromising his integrity, and breaking rules. For good measure, there's also romantic backstabbing. The film tends to get a shade heavy on the moralising as Cusack slides further down the slope to outright corruption; Spader practically carries a sign saying, "I have the moral high ground". Still, both actors give their characters an interesting spin, and it's always good to see Widmark back in action. --Marshall Fine

Not a bad movie, but not brilliant either. As a dyed-the-wool John Cusack fan I'm bound to say his performance was good, and it was, but certainly not his greatest. James Spader was good in the role of the 'good guy', something he tends not to do very often. The casting of both actors against their usual type did mean that I thought more about the plot/story than I might have done otherwise. Neither of these main characters is really bad nor really good, they are written reasonably well and are 'real'/human. Somehow there was something a bit clumsy about the film. Perhaps it was just the 80s setting viewed in the 00s or the fact that some of the character background was given clumsily...the bar scene where Cusack's character's history is revealed was not subtle at all! Still a watchable film and interesting subject matter...maybe I enjoyed it more than my 3 star rating suggests...