***I would like to recognize the passing of George C. Scott this week. He was a fine actor who delivered one of the great monologues in film history in Patton. May he rest in peace.***
Double Jeopardy 1 Star (Out of 4) Reviewed by Mac VerStandig critic@moviereviews.org http://www.moviereviews.org September 30, 1999
Double Jeopardy comes at the beginning of a fall movie season that is expected to be one of the film business' best, both artistically and financially. Unfortunately, the movie serves as a reminder that those two qualities do not always go hand-and-hand. The production's big name stars and run-from-the-law plot will likely deliver big bucks for Paramount despite a noticeable absence of quality.
Libby Parsons (Ashley Judd) is a happily married woman enjoying the success of her husband, Nick (Bruce Greenwood) and very much involved with their son, Matty. An abrupt change occurs when she spends a romantic weekend on a sailboat with Nick. While at sea she finds herself framed for his bloody murder. Not too much later, she is behind bars, having put her son in the custody of her best friend, Angie (Annabeth Gish).
Angie disappears soon after Libby is imprisoned. With the help of some fellow inmates, the accused murderer finds her friend living in San Francisco with Matty - and the very much alive Nick. Libby doesn't pursue revenge while in prison, but rather patiently waits for her parole (advice that she gets from the same two aforementioned inmates that welcome her with open arms for no apparent reason and seem to help her with everything accordingly). One of the two inmates used to be a lawyer and explains that since Libby is already convicted of murdering her husband, she cannot be tried again under the fifth amendment, which states "No person (shall)...be subject for the some offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb."
After a suspiciously short period of time for a convicted murderer, Libby is paroled to a halfway-house under the supervision of Travis Lehman (Academy Award winner Tommy Lee Jones). From there, the search for her beloved son is on. One night, her quest keeps her out after curfew. She realizes this and flees the state. Travis follows in pursuit, thus creating a manhunt of a manhunt. The rest of the film is as cliched as one might imagine, with the payoff scene having plot twists that hardly catch the audience by surprise.
Ever since James Bond came along, some films have gained a certain immunity to the laws of realistically conceivable plots. Double Jeopardy abuses that privilege to the nth degree. Although the fifth amendment clause is not too farfetched, certain not-so-small details are. I am quite confident that Libby's possessing a murder weapon, ruining at least two cars, constant fleeing of states, breaking and entering a school and destruction of federal property might just be enough land her back behind bars. It also strikes me as particularly amazing that the police always seem to show up at just the right moment and Libby always manages to escape by tripping up the officers Keystone Cops style. Ironically, it is the same branch of government that manages to convict her so quickly and efficiently in the beginning, even without a body to show the jury.
The brief, yet all important, scenes in prison reek of deja vu. The two inmates that guide Libby are pulled right out of The Spitfire Grill. At the same time, I was reminded of the film I saw just before Double Jeopardy. At the end of Mumford, a reference is made to a certain prison as "a country club." That doesn't seem to be far from the case here, as other than a little labor, the penitentiary is filled with lively chatter, fun and games.
If ever there were proof that acting cannot compensate for a faulty script, it is here. Ashley Judd is just as good as she was in Heat, A Time To Kill, and Norma Jean and Marilyn (A made for HBO film where she portrayed Norma Jean and garnered several award nominations). But the real treat is Tommy Lee Jones who seems to have the on-the-run film down to a science after his critically acclaimed role in The Fugitive and the more recent U. S. Marshals. The two actors are very rarely on screen together, as the nature of their roles requires that they be in pursuit of each other. However, one scene that they do share carries a rare emotional feeling in a movie polluted with trucks speeding on sidewalks and action stunts of a similar nature.
Some many years from now, when the biographies of Ashley Judd and Tommy Lee Jones are written, this film will be conveniently left out as not even their two performances will save it from the fate of joining the "Employee Choices" rack at Blockbuster and the ranks of pay-television marathons. Probably, this is the last sentence you will ever read about Double Jeopardy.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews