History Film / ReversalOfFortune

* CrusadingLawyer: The other case Dershowitz is dealing with in the movie is of two African-Americans on death row for a crime he believes them innocent of, and he's working that case pro bono. In real life, the boys were white, but the trope is better served with the crusader saving poor oppressed minorities rail-roaded by the justice system. The movie doesn't mention that alongside their father they busted an unrelated convicted murder out of prison, and that the escapees killed not 2 people but 6 (the Supreme Court handed down Tison v. Arizona prohibiting the death penalty for them in 1987, but the film claims the "Johnson" brothers are still on death row).

* CrusadingLawyer: The other case Dershowitz is dealing with in the movie is of two African-Americans on death row for a crime he believes them innocent of, and he's working that case pro bono. In real life, the boys were white, but the trope is better served with the crusader saving poor oppressed minorities rail-roaded by the justice system. The movie also doesn't mention they busted their father out of prison and he then murdered four people.

* AffablyEvil: Klaus. Possibly. Wheter he's actually guilty or not is never revealed but being played by Creator/JeremyIrons means he's got plenty of charisma and sinister charm that make him impossible not to enjoy.

* AffablyEvil: Klaus. Possibly. Wheter he's actually guilty or not is never revealed but being played by Creator/JeremyIrons means he's got plenty of charisma and sinister charm.

It's about Claus von Bulow (Creator/JeremyIrons), a British aristocrat of Danish-German extraction living in Rhode Island at the time, who was tried and convicted of attempting to kill his wife Sunny (Creator/GlennClose) by injecting her with insulin, which put her into a coma. Von Bulow, who maintained his innocence throughout, hired law professor/lawyer Alan Dershowitz (Ron Silver), who successfully appealed the verdict.

* YouHaveToHaveJews: Andrea, Claus' current girlfriend, claims she's the one who told Claus to "hire the Jew (Dershowitz)" as his lawyer. Claus is less than pleased by her statement, though it's not made clear if it's because what she said was offensive to him or that it wasn't a good idea to reveal this to Dershowitz.

* TheStoic: Von Bulow is ''extremely'' emotionally reserved, to the point where he often seems callous and uncaring. Flashbacks to his marriage with Sunny make it clear that it's not a front or (in and of itself) anything sinister; Claus just isn't very good at expressing his emotions. Which doesn't stop Dershowitz from calling him out on this a few times.

* JerkassHasAPoint: When Claus first meets Alan, he tells the lawyer that "My rights have been egregiously violated!" Considering that he's walking free while appealing his conviction, his comment initially seems preposterous, especially since Allen is defending two poor murder suspects on death row. But Alan realizes that Claus isn't wrong; Sunny's family has hired both a private prosecutor and a detective to perform illegal searches to convict Claus, which gives him a strong hook for his defense strategy.

* IdleRich: Invoked by Alan on Claus and Sunny's marriage, saying that a good marriage takes work, and those people don't like to work.

* JerkassHasAPoint: When Claus first meets Alan, he tells the lawyer that "My rights have been egregiously violated!" Considering that he's walking free while appealing his conviction his comment initially seems preposterous, but once Alan learns that Sunny's family has hired both a private prosecutor and a detective to perform illegal searches to convict Claus, it gives him a strong hook for his defense strategy.

* TheStoic: Von Bulow, and Dershowitz calls him out on this a few times.

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: When Dershowitz is telling his former students about working on Von Bulow's case, one of them, Minnie (Felicity Huffman) becomes outraged. [[WhatTheHellHero She's offended Dershowitz would even consider the case because Von Bulow's so obviously guilty.]] This is how Dershowitz responds:

* FramingTheGuiltyParty: When it's realized that Sunny's children framed Claus, Sarah exclaims that means Claus is innocent. Alan and Raj reply that they could have simply framed a guilty man.

* FramingTheGuiltyParty: When it's realized that Sunny's children framed Claus, one student exclaims that means Claus is innocent. Alan and another student reply that they could have simply framed a guilty man.

* RashomonStyle: We see events happening from the maid's point of view, from Sunny's children's point of view, and from Claus' point of view. As Sunny herself says in the narration, no one will ever really know what happened.

-->'''Alan Dershowitz:''' (''after Von Bulow calls Sunny's second coma "more theatrical" when the team asks him about it'') Theatrical? What is this, a fucking game? This is life and death; you're wife is in a coma. You, you don't even make a pretense of caring, do you?

* AffablyEvil: "Evil" is obviously up for debate but Claus is undoubtedly charming and pleasant throughout.

* JerkassHasAPoint: When Claus first meets Alan, he tells the lawyer that "My rights have been egregiously violated!" Considering that he's walking free and hasn't yet been formally charged his comment initially seems preposterous, but once Alan learns that Sunny's family has hired both a private prosecutor and a detective to perform illegal searches to convict Claus, it gives him a strong hook for his defense strategy.

* CrusadingLawyer: The other case Dershowitz is dealing with in the movie is of two African-Americans on death row for a crime he believes them innocent of, and he's working that case pro bono.

-->'''Alan Dershowitz:''' Look, you're my student, you, you have a choice. You don't have to do anything you don't want to do; that is your choice. The reason I take cases - and here unlike most other lawyers, who are not professors and therefore have to make a living - I take cases because I get pissed off, and I am pissed off here. The family hired a private prosecutor: unacceptable! They conducted a private search! Now if we let them get away with that, rich people won't go to the cops any more. You know what they're going to do? They're going to get their own lawyers to collect evidence, and then they are going to choose which evidence they feel like passing on to the DA. And the next victim isn't going to be rich, like Von Bülow, but it's going to be some poor [[YiddishAsASecondLanguage schnook]] in Detroit who can't afford, or who can't find, a decent lawyer. I think it's a little more complicated than your simple moral superiority, hmm?

''Reversal Of Fortune'' is a 1990 drama BasedOnATrueStory, directed by Barbet Schroeder. It's about Claus von Bulow (Creator/JeremyIrons), a British aristocrat of Danish-German extraction living in Rhode Island at the time, who was tried and convicted of attempting to kill his wife Sunny (Creator/GlennClose) by injecting her with insulin, which put her into a coma. Von Bulow, who maintained his innocence throughout, hired law professor/lawyer Alan Dershowitz (Ron Silver), who successfully appealed the verdict.

* YouHaveToHaveJews: Andrea, Claus' current girlfriend, claims she's the one who told Claus to "hire the Jew (Dershowitz)" as his lawyer.