The Accused

It powerfully manipulates our emotions of outrage and revenge but tends to sacrifice human subtlety for polemics. It leaves the thin aftertaste of a TV movie. It doesn't help that McGillis give a dull, leaden performance, rendering her side of the story more perfunctory than it needed to be. Foster must carry the show alone; she seems to compact a lifetime of hard knocks into this furious, touching performance. [24 Oct 1988, p.74]

Only a riveting performance by Jodie Foster lifts THE ACCUSED above the level of a television movie. Read full review

Foster and McGillis never quite make the transition from ideological mouthpieces to fully developed dramatic figures. [14 Oct 1988, p.C]

A preachy, empty story, enlivened by a great central performance and generous dollops of self-delusion, not the least offensive of which are Topor's and Lansing's quoted comparisons of their movie to the moral climate of the Holocaust. To paraphrase dear Joseph Welch, have they no shame? [14 Oct 1988, p.4]