DOUBLE JEOPARDY A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 1999 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): ** 1/2
A completely formulaic thriller, DOUBLE JEOPARDY by Bruce Beresford (DRIVING MISS DAISY) manages to be more fun than it has any right to be. The script by David Weisberg and Douglas Cook is full of those moments so ridiculous that the audience cries out in warning. The characters, who apparently aren't listening, go ahead and make one stupid mistake after another.
So what is the secret that almost saves it? It's funny, thanks especially to a nice turn by the always reliable Tommy Lee Jones as a tough as nails parole officer who eventually reveals a compassionate side.
Jones pops one-liners with great glee. Running a strict halfway house for new female parolees, he lectures them sternly about the house rules -- break them and he'll revoke their "Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free cards." They must toe the line. "There are no second chances in this house, Baby," he says. "This is a last chance house."
It all starts when Elizabeth Parsons's husband, Nick (Bruce Greenwood as a good slime ball), fakes his own death while sailing with her. Appearing to be a murderer who stabbed her husband and tossed him overboard, she is found guilty of his murder. Nick later reappears in another city with another name. And, to make it worse, he takes their young son, Matty, with him so that Elizabeth will not be able to see Matty again.
Most of the movie takes place after Elizabeth has been released, as she tries to track down her husband and her parole officer (Jones) tries to find her. The movie's title comes from the questionable bit of legal advice that she is now free to kill her husband since she has already served time for killing him. The law, you see, precludes being tried twice for the same crime.
The casting of the wife proves problematic. As Elizabeth, Ashley Judd delivers half of a good performance. When the script calls for cute, she is absolutely adorable. In the movie's funniest scene, she turns off someone hitting on her by revealing her background. With a perky smile that cries out "date me," she nonchalantly tells her would-be suitor that she'd love to go out for a drink with him, but she has to check in with her parole officer first. Although he jokes that she must have gotten too many parking tickets, she corrects him, telling him that she was tried and convicted of murdering her husband. The incident sizzles with a comedic sexual spark as she simultaneously flirts with him with her eyes while turning him off with her words.
In a thriller, however, Judd is also expected to act scared. In this movie, she seems constitutionally incapable of showing fright. In the movie's worst moment, Elizabeth wakes up in bed, noticing that her husband is missing and that there is enough blood everywhere for the massacre of a small army. She calmly calls out her husband's name, as if she expects he just nicked his finger but somehow turned the room into looking like a slaughterhouse. Put yourself in her shoes. Think you might scream uncontrollably? Think you might appear tremendously frightened?
Moreover, from the time she is arrested until she leaves prison, Elizabeth generally appears remarkably calm and accepting of her plight. The whole first act of the story has a completely inappropriate serenity to it, as if Beresford doesn't seem to realize its dramatic demands.
The less said about the story's conventional ending, the better. Still, as a comedy with a couple of likable leads, the movie delivers.
DOUBLE JEOPARDY runs 1:44. It is rated R for language, a scene of sexuality and some violence and would be fine for teenagers.
Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com Web: http://www.InternetReviews.com
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