Lead actor Armand Assante once said of this "I, the Jury" remake around the time of its theatrical release: "You can't do Mike Hammer today like you could thirty years ago. We're making a contemporary version of "I, the Jury". It's not a period piece. So the story not only had to be updated but changed around significantly, and so did the character of Mike Hammer. He's no longer an alcoholic, and he's not some dumb macho creep. He's a guy who fought in Vietnam and then came back to America and found the whole country in a shambles".