`Double Jeopardy' – The Fugitive that Never Should've Been by Homer Yen (c) 1999
I think that at some point, Tommy Lee Jones, who I think is a very talented actor, must be able to find some work that doesn't involve him reprising his role from `The Fugitive'. In that memorable film, (to which this one will undoubtedly remind you of) he plays a smart lawman with the tracking ability of a bloodhound. In a recent film, `US Marshalls,' he did the same thing. And in this film, well, you kind of get the point.
Libby Parsons (Ashley Judd who oozes with potential but always winds up in mediocre movies) wakes up one night on her yacht to find that her husband, Nick (Bruce Greenwood) is missing. There's blood everywhere, and when Libby manages the courage to begin searching around, the only thing that she finds is a bloody knife. Just as she picks it up, a coast guard cutter arrives thinking that she has sliced and diced her husband to death. Despite the fact that the body is never found, the prosecution convinces the jury (through nothing but circumstantial evidence) to convict her of the crime. During her incarceration, she discovers that Nick is alive. He has somehow framed Libby for his murder, though the reasons are a bit unclear to me. Now she only wants to get out of jail to track him down. Six years pass by and she learns one very important thing – the principle of double jeopardy. It states that once the State convicts you of a crime, it can not retry you for the same crime. So, in essence, she's free to walk up to Nick and shoot him the head.
Armed with this knowledge, but with very little else, she manages to get paroled. Her parole officer is the gruff and man-of-little patience Travis Lehman (Jones). Though he will throw any one who breaks curfew back into jail without hesitation, Libby escapes the first chance she gets. Lehman now goes after her (allowing those that he oversaw to break curfew all they want), and the chase is on. Can Libby clear her name before Lehman tracks her down? I wouldn't think so. She's just not well equipped to do so. She's not a killer, so it's hard to believe that she would actually cold-heartedly pull the trigger when she finally does find Nick (which the movie trailers tell us that she does). And though she makes phone calls, surfs the internet and makes inquiries here and there, she doesn't really seem to have a plan of attack. As a result, the film just proceeds along like some Kansas interstate highway. There are no turns or twists or anything that would play on the irony of her situation. There are some scenes that heighten Libby's fragile predicament such as when she plunges over the side of a ferry or when she is entombed next to a decaying corpse. But this just tries to pump some juice into a film that just doesn't have enough electricity to keep going.
`Double Jeopardy' just lacked any significant amount of style and intrigue. The film doesn't exhibit the kind of energy that these kinds of chase movies need nor did it create any kind of chemistry between the hunter and the hunted. If you ever look through the newspaper ads for movies currently playing, you'll always notice quotes from various sources when there is something good to say. The funny thing is that when you look at the ad for `Double Jeopardy,' you'll see a quote from, of all places, NYLON magazine. Anybody ever heard of them? When you start pulling quotes from those kinds of places, it should be a sign that this is one to avoid.
Grade: C
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