The Accused (DVD)

Amazon.com
Jodie Foster won her first Oscar for her role in this drama, based on an actual incident. She plays a good-time girl who, while out for a night of fun at a poolroom, lets things get out of hand. Before she knows what's happening, the men she's been flirting with have pinned her down for a gang rape. The story centers on the efforts of a district attorney (Kelly McGillis) to press her case, in spite of a wall of silence by the participants--and then to take the unusual step of going after the witnesses as accomplices. Foster is outstanding as a tough, blue-collar woman who persists in what seems like an unwinnable case, despite the prospect of character assassination for standing up for herself. --Marshall Fine