JUST CAUSE
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1995 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Sean Connery, Laurence Fishburne, Blair Underwood, Kate Capshaw, Ed Harris. Screenplay: Jeb Stuart & Peter Stone. Director: Arne Glimcher.
You could probably count on one hand the number of male stars over 60 who can still carry a film: Paul Newman, certainly; Clint Eastwood; and of course, Sean Connery. And what is astonishing about all three of these examples is that for the longest time, few people really thought of any of them as good actors. They were pretty boys, action heroes destined for obscurity once the youthful good looks faded, but all three have developed unexpected range over the years. Sean Connery might have had the farthest to go, moving from James Bond to Academy Award winner to veteran star. He is an impressive presence in JUST CAUSE, but he is wasted. JUST CAUSE is a sorry excuse for a thriller, with both narrative and character handled with remarkable ineptitude.
Connery plays Paul Armstrong, a Harvard law professor renowned for his opposition to capital punishment. He is approached at a debate one night by a woman (Ruby Dee) who needs his help. Her grandson, Bobby Earl Ferguson (Blair Underwood), is on death row in Florida, the result of what he claims was a forced confession. Armstrong is reluctant to take the case at first, but at the insistence of his wife Laurie (Kate Capshaw), he heads down to Florida to investigate. There he finds a very antagonistic local police force led by detective Tanny Brown (Laurence Fishburne), some questionable evidence, and a possible alternative suspect in the person of convicted serial killer Blair Sullivan (Ed Harris).
The cast of JUST CAUSE is loaded with talent, and that alone offered a great deal of promise. However, with the exception of Laurence Fishburne, who is impressive as the hard-case small town cop, they are given almost nothing to work with or fumble what they do have. The usually reliable Ed Harris bugs his eyes and bares his teeth as the religious fanatic/psycho Sullivan, looking for all the world like he is auditioning for the next Hannibal Lecter in case Anthony Hopkins asks for too much money. He does everything but say "fava beans." Kate Capshaw takes a step up from her blink-and-you'll-miss-it role in LOVE AFFAIR, but she isn't really subtle enough an actor to make the stock threatened wife role anything interesting. Blair Underwood has a few nice moments early, but he too is saddled with a shallow character with some really unpleasant undertones.
Then there is Connery, who can do wonders with a wry smile but is trapped in a character that looks like it was abandoned by writers Jeb Stuart and Peter Stone two-thirds of the way through and completed by computer. There is some suggestion early in the film that there is a reason Armstrong hasn't practiced law in 25 years, a reason which will play a role in Ferguson's case. Later, when Armstrong is talking to Sullivan, Sullivan says that he sees in Armstrong's eyes that he is a killer. Again there is the suggestion that there is a dark, guilty secret in Armstrong's past, but there is never another mention of the issue. Connery is left stranded without any real motivation, and as the plot develops that absence proves crucial, leaving his feelings about criminal justice completely unexplored.
Actually, describing the plot as "developing" is something of an overstatement. JUST CAUSE is a completely predictable thriller, with deus ex machina clues popping up for Armstrong to discover and a plot twist which was nearly inevitable. Director Arne Glimcher doesn't appear to have a single original idea for how to construct a film like this, so he puts together ideas from a hundred other mundane thrillers: a car chase here, a woman in distress there, a serial killer, a mano-a-mano in the Everglades and some moody lighting. But there's just no point to any of it. JUST CAUSE fails to generate an ounce of tension because tension depends on unpredictability and characters we genuinely want to see survive the danger. I was actually kind of hoping that everyone would end up as gator bait. The biggest mystery in JUST CAUSE ends up being why in the world Sean Connery decided to do it.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 death sentences: 3.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University Office of the General Counsel
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