Mental Health Laws in the movies PRimal Fear and Nuts Essay

Mental Health Laws in the movies PRimal Fear and Nuts - Essay Example In the case of â€Å"Nuts† the defendant is declared to be mentally insane but seeks to establish that she is mentally competent to face trial. While these two films have a different orientation to the subject of legal insanity, both of them deal with the courtroom proceedings surrounding the establishment of this legal defense. In both these films, the defendants admit to their criminal acts, but it is the defense that puts forth the insanity plea in â€Å"Primal Fear†, while it is the prosecution that advances the insanity defense in challenging the defendant’s competence to stand trial. The film â€Å"Nuts† revolves around a call girl, Claudia, who has killed a client and has been declared to be insane by the resident jail psychiatrist. She comes from a respectable, middle class white family and her mother, a timid woman together with her stepfather, are eager to ensure that the psychiatrist’s finding is substantiated, so that their daughter is declared not guilty and the publicity involved with a public trial can be avoided. As the film progresses, Claudia’s hostile attitude which even extends to clipping her attorney on the nose, coupled with the huge chip she carries on her shoulder only appear to corroborate this diagnosis and make it even more difficult for Claudia to prove that she is mentally competent to stand trial for her crime. As the film unfolds, some of the character’s motivation and reasons for her lifestyle and attitude become clearer, one of them being the revelation about her stepfather’s abuse in childhood and h er mother’s tacit knowledge of the situation, while failing to address it. The film ends with Claudia successfully establishing her competence to stand trial, since her hostility and violent attitude is partly explained by her background. The film â€Å"Primal Fear† presents a defendant who is a vulnerable looking altar boy, accused of