Karen Krasny – Google

This is an excellent movie. It was made in 1999 and still holds up 23 years later. Written by Ehren Kruger, starring Jeff Bridges, Hope Davis, Tim Robbins and Joan Cusack. Writing, acting, and story are all excellent. I read some of the other reviews and the negative ones were written by people who only half watched the movie, missing the subtleties of the plot against Jeff Bridges' character. He was, in fact, chosen and targeted by his new neighbors because of the manner of his wife's death and because he taught a course on Terrorism at university. They also used his young son to manipulate and threaten him. Well done.

I wish they had named the show something else as it had no resemblance to the books or the much beloved Perry Mason of old (with Raymond Burr). 1932 - which was well done in the detail, but had too many women and black people working in offices (to be realistic). Also had too many people swearing - the average person didn't use f#@* in every day speech until 2000s. Della Street and Hamilton Burger were perfectly cast - but they unnecessarily let us know they were gay. I loved the Della Street character. Paul Drake was cast as a black man, which is fine, except that he wouldn't be able to investigate much because of segregation and white people wouldn't talk to him. Perry Mason was horribly miscast - Matthew Rhys is at least 15 years too old. (in real life, he is 46). He was also portrayed as a womanizing, poorly spoken, bad tempered, unshaven, drunk and deadbeat divorced Dad - certainly not Perry Mason.