Double Jeopardy (1999) a review by Christian Pyle
Libby Parsons (Ashley Judd) has the perfect little life -- a rich husband, a cute son, and a house on the ocean -- but when her husband Nick (Bruce Greenwood) takes her sailing, she awakes to find him gone and her hands covered with blood. Just as she makes it to the deck and picks up the bloody knife lying there, the Coast Guard arrives in response to a distress call her vanished husband sent. She's convicted of his murder, of course, and leaves her son Matty (Benjamin Weir) with her best friend (Annabeth Gish). Time passes, and the friend disappears with Matty. During their last phone conversation Libby hears Matty yell "Daddy!" and realizes that her husband is still alive.
Libby serves six years, growing harder and driven by the desire to kill Nick (based on the theory that because of the "double jeopardy" amendment she can off him with impunity). When she gets parole, she's sent to a halfway house run by Travis Lehman (Tommy Lee Jones), a former law professor who ruined his life with a drunk driving accident. After a little breaking and entering and some destruction of property, Libby jumps parole and lams it across the country looking for Nick and Matty. Travis pursues, naturally.
"Double Jeopardy" is a watered-down version of "The Fugitive," with Jones sleep-walking through his well-worn pursuer persona. Although Libby never leaps from a bus that collides with a train, she manages to get into a few nail-biters -- chased down the beach by a jeep, chained to a car that plunges into the ocean, sealed in a coffin -- that add some much needed thrills to an anemic, slow-moving script.
Character development is thin. Travis' intriguing backstory is mentioned a couple times but has no effect on the story. (I think they only made him a former law professor so that he could verify the double-jeopardy theory when Libby gets the drop on Nick. It's a long way to go for one line). There's considerable sexual tension between Travis and Libby (hey, there's something "The Fugitive" didn't have!), but it never goes anywhere. Libby is a TV-movie Everywoman, but Judd's intense performance draws us in and makes us forget that her character has no distinguishing characteristics. This is Judd's most prominent role to date, and she proves that she can light up the screen. Let's hope Hollywood gives her more to work with next time around.
The quality of director Bruce Beresford's movies seems to depend on luck. When he has a good script and a strong cast, he turns out Oscar-caliber work like "'Breaker' Morant," "Driving Miss Daisy," and "Tender Mercies." When he doesn't . . . we get "Double Jeopardy." Screenwriters David Weisberg and Douglas Cook previously collaborated on "The Rock," a script which probably benefited from the numerous uncredited rewrites.
Bottom Line: Ashley Judd tries hard but can't save this predictable bore.
Grade: D+
© 2000 Christian L. Pyle
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