''Judgment'' is an

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

television film A television film, alternatively known as a television movie, made-for-TV film/movie or TV film/movie, is a feature-length film that is produced and originally distributed by or to a television network, in contrast to theatrical films made for ...

. It was first broadcast on October 13, 1990, and was written and directed by

Tom Topor Tom Topor (born 1938) is an American playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. Topor was born in Vienna, Austria, and was brought to London in 1939, where he remained until he came to New York City in 1949. He earned his bachelor's degree at Br ...

. The film's tagline is "No one stands beyond the reach of the law, not even the

Church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chris ...

Plot

The

sexual abuse of minors Child sexual abuse (CSA), also called child molestation, is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include engaging in sexual activities with a child (whet ...

by priests is the delicate issue to be handled by Peter and Emmeline Guitry, devout

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

s in a small town in

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

whose lives are shattered when their son Robbie reveals that he has been sexually abused by their priest, Father Frank Aubert. Along with other parents in the parish, they begin a persistent but painful campaign to remove Aubert from the clergy, and have him prosecuted as a

sex offender A sex offender (sexual offender, sex abuser, or sexual abuser) is a person who has committed a sex crime. What constitutes a sex crime differs by culture and legal jurisdiction. The majority of convicted sex offenders have convictions for crime ...

. The Catholic Church attempts to cover up the abuse and place Aubert back in the parish, causing a nationally publicized lawsuit.

Cast

Keith Carradine Keith Ian Carradine ( ; born August 8, 1949) is an American actor who has had success on stage, film, and television. He is known for his roles as Tom Frank in Robert Altman's film ''Nashville'', Wild Bill Hickok in the HBO series '' Deadwood ...

as Pete Guitry *

Blythe Danner Blythe Katherine Danner (born February 3, 1943) is an American actress. Accolades she has received include two Primetime Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her role as Izzy Huffstodt on '' Huff'' (2004–2006), and a ...

as Emmeline Guitry *

Jack Warden Jack Warden (born John Warden Lebzelter Jr.; September 18, 1920July 19, 2006) was an American character actor of film and television. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for ''Shampoo'' (1975) and '' Heaven Can Wait ...

as Claude Fortier *

David Strathairn David Russell Strathairn (; born January 26, 1949) is an American actor. Known for his leading roles on stage and screen, he has often portrayed historical figures such as Edward R. Murrow, J. Robert Oppenheimer, William H. Seward, and John Dos ...

as Father Frank Aubert *Michael Faustino as Robbie Guitry *Crystal McKellar as Sabine Guitry *

Bob Gunton Robert Patrick Gunton Jr. (born November 15, 1945) is an American character actor of stage and screen. He is known for playing strict authoritarian characters, including Warden Samuel Norton in the 1994 prison drama ''The Shawshank Redemption'', ...

as Monsignor Beauvais *

Mitchell Ryan Mitchell Ryan (January 11, 1934 – March 4, 2022) was an American film, television, and stage actor, who in his six decades of television is known for playing Burke Devlin in the 1960s gothic soap opera ''Dark Shadows'', and later for his co- ...

as Dave Davis *

Robert Joy Robert Joy (born August 17, 1951) is a Canadian actor. He is best known for his role as medical examiner Sid Hammerback on the police procedural series ''CSI: NY'', and his appearances in the films ''Atlantic City'' (1980), ''Ragtime'' (1981), ' ...

as Mr. Hummel *Steve Hofvendahl as Daniel Broussard *Mary Joy as Madeleine Broussard

Reception

Washington Post movie critic Tom Shales called the film "a competent, compelling docudrama, but also one of those squirm-inducing films that seem, when it's all over, not worth the discomfort." Chris Willman of the Los Angeles Times wrote: "Ultimately “Judgment” stops a little short of the judgments it seems prepared to make..." The Baltimore Sun's Steve McKerrow concluded, "the film grapples pretty well with its troubling topic." Kenneth R. Clark, writing in the Chicago Tribune, talked with the film's producer, Rob Hershman about the story's origins. In 1984 Hershman found a one paragraph newspaper summary of Louisiana priest

Gilbert Gauthe Gilbert Gauthe is an American former Catholic priest who served in the Diocese of Lafayette in Louisiana from 1972 to 1983. In 1984, Gauthe became the first Catholic priest in the United States to face a widely publicized criminal trial for child ...

's plea agreement and chose to cover the story on CBS News's "West 57th Street" program. Tom Topor, who had previously written about public rape in ''

The Accused Accused or The Accused may refer to: * A person suspected with committing a crime or offence; see Criminal charge ** Suspect, a known person suspected of committing a crime * The Accüsed, a 1980s Seattle crossover thrash band *''The Accused'', a ...

'' and about incestuous pedophilia in '' Nuts'' chose to write the screenplay about a fictional character similar to Gauthe and direct the project for HBO Films. Clark neither praised the film nor panned it, but pointed out "only HBO, with no advertisers to worry about and no public pressure groups to appease, would dare to run it."

Awards

*The director and writer

won the

Writers Guild of America The Writers Guild of America is the joint efforts of two different US labor unions representing TV and film writers: * The Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE), headquartered in New York City and affiliated with the AFL–CIO * The Writers Guil ...

award for his work on ''Judgment''.

References

External links

* * {{Sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church 1990 television films 1990 drama films HBO Films films Films scored by Cliff Eidelman Films about Catholic priests Films about child sexual abuse Films about pedophilia