Stick to the day job, Jerry

Jerry Springer makes his acting debut in this film as a Machiavellian reality TV producer. It might be best to stick to what you know for your first role, but this performance is unlikely to give Al Pacino many sleepless nights.

Springer plays Marty Rockman, whose latest television outrage involves the trial of a real criminal case live on television, with the audience acting as the jury. If the culprit is found guilty, Rockman intends to televise the first public execution on air.

Set in Tampa, Florida, where Governor Tyler (Roy Scheider) is troubled by an escalation in violent crime and "terrorism", Philippe Martinez's movie is a crude and lurid satire on the

profusion of similar (though less extreme) television shows.

It employs all the tricks of cross-cutting media to make its point: the cinema screen becomes a television screen; vox pops are thrown in from people on the street; and the fakery of television is exposed like the entrails of a postmortemised cadaver.

As much of this film was shot in Cape Town ( surprisingly, an Anglo-German production) one assumes it is the result of new tax schemes in South Africa.

Given the parlous state of film funding in the UK, beset with bureaucratic red tape and under the control of fearful sales agents, it would not surprise me to find more UK-based film-makers striking similar deals - a short-term solution to a long-term problem.

Cheap and flashy, and made with a kind of pulpy B-movie zest, Citizen Verdict pushes all the expected buttons.

Of the three killers on offer, the one chosen by audience ballot is the alleged murderer/ rapist of a television celebrity cook whose past life was not quite what it seemed, according to the defence lawyer, Sam Peterson (Armande Assante), who reluctantly takes part in the show for a pay cheque that is not just fat but obese.

While his telegenic rival, prosecuting attorney Jessica Landers (Justine Mitchell), may not be his legal equal, she proves adept at manipulating the audience and blossoms on camera. As "new" evidence is brought in at the last minute to swing the "jury" it is clear that the trial is a farce and that Peterson has been set up.

When confronted by the angry lawyer, Rockman spits: "A killer dies. And we make a ton of money. Grow up."

After a couple of opening references to "terrorism" that appear to have been squeezed in at the last moment for topicality's sake (Governor Tyler initially objects to the programme with the line: "What are you trying to do? Bring us down to the level of Iran or Iraq?"), the plot settles for a series of volleys against the media, while hedging its bets on the morality of the enterprise.