The People vs. Larry Flynt

Milos Forman's film in 1996, The People vs. Larry Flynt follows the twenty-five years of Hustler Magazine Publisher Larry Claxton Flynt, Jr.'s life from his impoverished upbringing in Kentucky to his court battle with Reverend Jerry Falwell. It recounts his struggle to make an honest living publishing his porn magazine and how it changes into a battle to protect the freedom of speech for all people.

The film begins in 1953 with a ten years old Larry Flynt who is raised in poverty is selling moonshine (unlicensed alcohol) in Kentucky. Twenty years later, Larry (Woody Harrelson) and his younger brother, Jimmy (Brett Harrelson) found some success running the Hustler Go-Go club in the city of Cincinnati, Ohio. With the profits down, Larry decides to publish a newsletter for his business, the first Hustler magazine, which quickly became known as one of the most sexually explicit and shocking magazines in the country.

With the help from his wife Althea (Courtney Love) and brother Jimmy, Larry makes a fortune from the sales of his magazine. However, Larry soon found himself in constant legal trouble with his success comes. He befriends with a young lawyer, Alan Isaacman (Edward Norton) who defends him in the name of Free Speech and the First Amendment to the US Constitution (1791).

ALTHEA FLYNT
(November 6, 1953 – June 27, 1987)

In 1978, Larry and Alan are both shot by a man with a rifle while they walk outside a courthouse during one of the trial. Alan recovers but Larry is paralyzed from the waist down and uses a wheelchair for the rest of his life. In 1983, Larry undergoes surgery to deaden several nerves and as a result, feels rejuvenated. He returns to an active role with the publication and publishes a satirical parody ad in which Reverend Jerry Falwell (Richard Paul) tells of a sexual encounter with his mother in an out-house near Lynchburg, Virginia. Jerry sued Larry, citing emotional distress caused by the ad. The case goes to trial in December 1984, the jury found in favor of Larry on the libel claim, but found in favor of Jerry on the intentional infliction of emotional distress charge and awarded Jerry $150,000 in damages. In 1988, Larry won an important Supreme Court decision, Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, after an appealing.

JERRY LAMON FALWELL, SR. 
(August 11, 1933 – May 15, 2007)

The film ends reveal that Larry Flynt lives in Los Angeles and his assailant was never brought to justice. Alan Issaacman is still Larry Flynt's attorney and Jerry Falwell remains as one of the most respected religious figures in America.

ALAN L. ISAACMAN
(born July 12, 1942)

After Jerry Falwell's death, the real Larry Flynt stated he and Jerry Falwell had become friends over the years despite their differences. In the film, he himself made a cameo appearance as an Ohio judge and also a jury member in the court scene of the Jerry Falwell case.

This is an old film but I only watched it recently, one of the critics which I read and agreed with it, "This isn't a movie about Larry Flynt, the porn king. It's more a movie about the right to say what you want to say, without having to think of every person's opinion first."

This is a film which either you like it or you hate it and since I am into a biographical drama film, this film is still worth to watch.

Movie Trailer: