'GUILT BY ASSOCIATION'

EPSN entered the TV movie business Sunday with a punishing Bobby
Knight docudrama. Court TV jumps in with its first original movie:
Guilt by Association, an advocacy drama that's also punishing.

The film, premiering at 9 p.m. Wednesday, illustrates how mandatory
minimum sentences in drug laws can make innocent women suffer for the
misdeeds of their husbands or boyfriends. It's a modern-day Les
Miserables, with the legal system as Javert and the many mistreated
women as Jean Valjean.

Widowed Susan (Oscar winner Mercedes Ruehl) is plunged into a
nightmare for loving the dashing Russell (Alex Carter). She breaks off
their relationship when she sees him smoking marijuana in her home,
but she doesn't know he's a drug dealer.

When he and his cronies are arrested, Susan is charged with
conspiracy. The prosecution demands her cooperation although she has
nothing to offer.

The government seizes her house and car. She loses her nursing job.
She's sentenced to 20 years in prison. Her two young children go to
live with her stressed sister.

The issue is important. The movie is heavy-handed and mediocre. Ruehl,
in a fierce performance, spells out the problem: "People in this
country better wake up because if it could happen to me, it could
happen to anybody."

Point taken, but subtlety would have helped.