The Accused

A young waitress, bruised, clothes ripped, runs screaming from a bar. Sarah Tobias (Foster, excellent) has been gang-raped, and her case is taken on by cool and efficient Deputy DA Kathryn Murphy (McGillis). When Murphy makes a deal with the accused men to reduce the charge to reckless endangerment, Sarah is enraged; and Murphy, beginning to feel the pangs of guilt, decides to prosecute the men who did not take part in the rape but encouraged the others. Surrounded by a storm of controversy - mostly generated by the inclusion of the explicit, some say exploitative, gang-rape scene -the film was written and directed by men, and produced by the Jaffe-Lansing Fatal Attraction stable, which hasn't helped its cause. And though it does make a clear stand on vital social and legal questions, one is left feeling distinctly uneasy at the inclusion of the scene.