Director: Bruce Beresford
Writer(s): David Weisberg and Douglas Cook
Category: Thriller
MPAA: R
Runtime: 105 min
Country: USA
Language: English
Year: 1999
Tagline: Murder isn’t always a crime.
Plot: Framed for her husband’s murder, Libby Parsons (Ashley Judd) survives the long years in prison with two burning desires sustaining her: finding her son and solving the mystery that destroyed her once-happy life.
Review: Predictable, shallow and without any flavor. That is how I would characterize this movie. You’ve seen it before and you know what’s coming throughout the entire movie. I feel like a patrol cop telling the crowd “keep moving, there’s nothing to see here.”
Ashley Judd gives another lackluster performance as a well-to-do wife who gets sent to prison for 6 years. You’d think she was sent to the time out corner instead. Judd portrays the same character leaving prison as she DOES when she enters. Wait, I take that back. Her character does do some sit ups to prove that she’s tough now. Please. %)
And you’d think this was another in the Fugitive series like US Marshalls was. Tommy Lee Jones needs to watch out that he doesn’t make another movie where he’s chasing a convict, or that’s all he’s going to be known for. Jones is a great character actor, and I love his work, but nothing he can do can help this lame duck of a script.
The final nail in the coffin for me was the finale, which is shot in New Orleans. I’m from Louisiana, so perhaps I’m more sensitive than most, but few movies get the accents right. One of the few movies that come to mind that does get it right is Heaven’s Prisoners. Suffice to say that Double Jeopardy butchers the accent. Not to mention the fact that everything is set in the French Quarter, as if that’s the only thing IN New Orleans.
Overall, this film is nothing but a series of cliches and cop outs. None of the characters have any depth. They are simply cardboard cutouts set against a paper thin story. If you’re looking for a movie to pass the time, or if you need to pacify a teenager for an hour and a half, then this is your movie.
My Rating: 2 Stars (2 out of 5 stars)
My IMDB Review: [link]
