UNDER SUSPICION
Reviewed by Harvey Karten Lions Gate Films/Revelations Entertainment Director: Stephen Hopkins Writer: W. Peter Iliff, Tom Provost, based on the movie "Garde A' Vue" by Claude Miller, Jean Herman and Michel Audiard from the book "Brainwash" by John Wainwright. Cast: Morgan Freeman, Gene Hackman, Thomas Jane, Monica Bellucci, Nydia Caro, Miguel Angel Suarez, Pablo Cunqueiro
Move over, Inspector Javert. You spent your whole career tracking down the innocent Jean Valjean in Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables," but for sheer fanaticism you have nothing on Captain Victor Benezet, a San Juan cop with political ambitions in Stephen Hopkins's tense, involving and adult picture "Under Suspicion." This detective thriller with Hitchcockian undertones is of the sort that could be effective on the live stage, as most of the action takes place within the local police precinct, but Hopkins--exploiting a taut screenplay by W. Peter Iliff and Tom Provost--has opened up the operation to establish the exciting ambience of Puerto Rico during its San Sebastian carnival.
The film is the result of Gene Hackman's relentless search for backing to remake the French film, "Garde A' Vue" which he had seen some twenty years ago, finally hitting pay dirt when Morgan Freeman's production company, Revelations Entertainment, backed the project. Claude Miller's 1981 picture, written by Michel Audiard and Jean Herman, featured Michel Serrault in the role of a rich and envied notary married to the beautiful and noble but impoverished Chantal (Romy Schneider) who coldly ignores him, and is held on New Year's Eve by Inspector Antoine Gallien (Lino Ventura) as a suspect in the rape-murder of two young girls. As in that original version, the crime itself becomes merely a background for an intricate verbal chess game between a cop and a lawyer who, we learn, have quite a bit in common except that the policeman is of a different race and not as wealthy as the celebrated tax lawyer he interrogates.
On the stage, the story would hold and audience simply by the discipline and tenseness of the inquiry--a long night's journey into day pitting Capt. Victor Benezet (Morgan Freeman) against the rich and powerful attorney, Henry Hearst, who, he becomes convinced, is guilty of raping and killing two 13-year-old girls--particularly after confirming that his prisoner is telling a heap of lies. The combination of first- rate acting by the two pros and the trenchant screenplay lead us in the audience to realize that the real issue is the fight-to- the-death of two strong protagonists, the police captain determined to wear down his opponent, the lawyer incensed that he is being held on what he repeatedly calls a ludicrous charge.
Hanging over the proceedings is the complex relationship between the 57-year-old Henry Hearst and his astonishingly beautiful and sophisticated 30-ish wife, Isabella (Monica Bellucci). Hearst, a photographer by avocation who maintains that he is building an archive of the island's chronology, in fact has his eyes on a subject with quite a bit less history: 13-year-old girls. His regard for them, particularly for his adorable niece Camille, is a source of regular provocation to his lovely wife, who like the women in Aristophanes' "Lysistrata" has been by locking him out of the bedroom. Increasingly depressed, desperate for attention and affection, and most of all self-destructive, Hearst seeks out the company of low-class street hookers despite his ability to afford services of the highest-price escort services. Putting two and two together, Capt. Benezet--a former colleague of his prisoner with whom he is on a first-name basis--is convinced of the lawyer's guilt, and while he uses his brain to break the man down, he must at the same time restrain the young, callow and handsome detective who assists in the questioning, Felix Owens (Thomas Jane).
We have to suspend judgment a bit in watching this film and do so happily given the tension that the production affords us. In real life, a smart and rich tax attorney would abide by the adage that a man who acts as his own lawyer has a fool for a client. No way would Hearst be willing to expose so many of his family problems to a captain who is out to nail him regardless of the cordiality the two had known in the past. That done, we can enjoy the cat-and-mouse game while taking in the fun and games of the revelers outside doing a modest imitation of Rio's annual Mardi Gras. Although Benezet's questioning takes place wholly within the immediate vicinity of the police station, Hopkins has a stylish way of putting Benezet imaginatively next to Hearst in the outdoor scenes when, of course, the cop is nowhere near the accused in and around the neighborhood of La Perla where a murder had taken place.
One wonders why Hackman needed to wait for a score of years to get this film produced given its mastery of the techniques of detective thrillers. Could the studios really have believed that "Under Suspicion" would be incapable of attracting a large audience simply because the picture substitutes explosive men for exploding building and features neither car crashes nor invisible men?
Rated R. Running time: 110 minutes. (C) 2000 by Harvey Karten, film_critic@compuserve.com
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