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Hey folks,
What Hopkins is serving up is called acting, and he serves it quite well.
Best wishes,
Dave Wile

Nicely put.
I liked Hopkins in this. With most strangers Adams was aloof and stiff, yet intense and principled when engaged in the public's business. Hopkin's natural shyness combined with Welsh passion & love of oratory is put to excellent use here.

ham is good.
Can't go wrong with taupe."- Wynn Duffy

I think the scene where Joadson is talking to Adams in the greenhouse is more or less that scene.
Joadson (Freeman) has kind of a little smile when Adams confirms HIS explanation of how the executive branch is interfering with the judiciary.
And, when Adams catches him with, "you know WHAT they are, but you have made no attempt to find out WHO they are," again Joadson shows he is starting to get the message.
When Adams arrives at the prison cell to talk to Cinque, in the middle of Baldwin pretty much saying, "I am at the end of my rope," there maybe should have been another 20 seconds where Adams says to Baldwin, "I got this one, sonny."
Also, the scene where James Covey (Ejiofor) is pestering Adams with all Cinque's questions on arcane legal points of jurisdiction, territorial limitation, etc etc, and Adams says, "Good point," that serves as a kind of "a-ha" moment for both Adams and Cinque, for Baldwin: he knows that Cinque is not just a semi-savage from the jungles and also that Adams is not a borderline-senile old coot just riding on his laurels.

4. You ever seen Superman $#$# his pants? Case closed.

That's certainly an interesting take on it Perhaps the filmmakers should've added a brief scene where those trying to enlist Adams' help do an "a-ha!" when they realize that he's not so "batty"/borderline senile as they'd first been led to believe.
Luxuriate in the eclectic
http://www.eccentric-cinema.com

You kinda missed the point.
In the first couple of scenes, Adams is trying to GET OUT of helping Tappan/Joadson/Baldwin.
He is trying to drive them off by playing the role of a pompous, slightly senile, pretty much out-of-it old codger. He does basically sympathize with their case, so he does give them a couple kernels of legitimately good advice, but he is really hoping they will decide he is too senile to be of use to them.
When the case went to the appeals stage after Baldwin had done most of the grunt work at the lower levels, and when Van Buren, whom Adams was no big fan of, started interfering in the case Adams decided to get involved, dumped the "goofy old codger" act, and brought his attention 100% to the case.
Notice when Joadson goes to see him the second time to try to get him to join the case, Adams is anything but a goofy old man he is very sharp in allowing HIM to point out how the President is now interfering in the case: "Nooooo!!"
Adams doesn't want to go on record to a guy he knows only casually (Joadson) of directly accusing one of his successors, Van Buren, of interfering with a lower court case (certainly unethical if not illegal) ex-presidents aren't really supposed to publicly criticize their successors so he allows JOADSON to spell it out, and he only goes along with generalized agreement. Yet he makes it very clear to Joadson he knows
exactly
what is going on.
Three-dimensional chess. Adams waits until he is before the Supreme Court before he makes any overt charges of presidential interference with the judiciary.
Really, Hopkins did a very good job, although maybe a bit overdone, of showing the change of character in Adams. But he had to go a bit over the top at the beginning the audience is supposed to think Adams was a bit batty, too.

4. You ever seen Superman $#$# his pants? Case closed.