I'd been intending to watch this film for a decade at this point, and only just now have I gotten around to doing so.
So I only knew a little bit about the film before watching it. I knew that it was a musical, I knew that it featured "Cell Block Tango" and "We Both Reached for the Gun", and I knew that the cast of characters were mostly morally reprehensible. Besides that, I knew basically nothing going in.
The premise of the film is that our two leads get put away for murder and that they both hire the same lawyer in an attempt to get away with it. We then follow these three villains try to play the jury and the public to get away with their crimes. One of the film's strengths is that, because our leads are all morally corrupt, there becomes a lot of uncertainty about what happens next. Will they succeed? Will they fail? We don't know until it happens. This uncertainty legitimately made me question where the film's direction was going, and had me on the edge of my seat the entire time.
The character writing is also great. Every character has layers to them, so we are never certain where their loyalties lie or what their intentions are in a given scene. Regardless of their corruption, they are all a blast to watch.
The songs were all quite good. One of the things that irks me about watching anything musical is the fear that lyrics and performance will make me cringe. I am personally quite sensitive to songs performed or written poorly, so I am always afraid that a musical will make me squirm in my seat at the performances. I was not afraid while watching this film, every song was catchy and excellently performed. Big, bombastic, and just plain fun.
One of the things I love the most about this film is how it utilizes "Subjectivity". Subjectivity is the cinematic technique that places us, the audience, inside a character's head. With two exceptions, pretty much every number plays in the mind of our lead, Roxie Hart. Roxie starts the film as a wide-eyed and naive young woman who is always thinking about stardom and being on-the-stage. After the murder she commits, we start seeing numbers about her thought process and her perspective of the world around her. I interpret this as her being so traumatized at the act she committed (as well as the news she had learned beforehand), that her mind warps slightly and everything starts coming through a musical filter as a result. I think it's a great decision to allow for bigger and more bombastic musical numbers, as well as not necessarily messing with the reality of their world too much.
Overall, I very much enjoyed my time with this film. It's a very solid 9/10. If anybody is into Musicals, it comes highly recommended.