Okay, here's the deal. Not braggin', but I'm considered to be an expert in more than a few matters in life. I know my movies, that's a given. I'm a connoisseur of sweet tea, foreign cigars, and WrestleMania. I can tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi with my eyes closed. (The secret lies in the smell of the belch.) I can also tell you what movie channel you're watching any time of day, just by knowing who's onscreen. Don't believe me? 11:10am, Burt Reynolds = TNT. 4:40pm, Christine Lahti = The Movie Channel. 8:00pm, anyone on the cover of People in the past year = HBO. Midnight, Shannon Tweed = Cinemax. 3:25am, that guy from the bacon comercial = Showtime.
But, friends and neighbors, there's also a certain subject that I know better than most folks. I've offered my services to the Harvard Law School, CNN's "Burden of Proof", and Judge Mills Lane, but nobody's ever called me back. Friends, I am an expert on "women's wrath."
I hear you out there now. "What the Sam Hill is Doc talking about?" Wrath, people. You know, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned"? I know that fury. Like I know Lipton Cold Brew tea with two cups of sugar per half-gallon, like I know a Montecristo #5 cigar, and like I know Bogie ain't gonna get on that plane with Bergman (and don't none of you tell me I just ruined Casablanca for you. If you haven't seen it by now, you don't deserve to be surprised.)
Yes, folks, I've had five ex-wives, and more than a few bad break-ups with lady friends, so I know all about the fury of a wronged woman. I know not to collect small fragile sculptures that can easily be thrown for accuracy at walls, cars, or my skull. I know not to let my truck sit too close to her car, so she can run a key down the side of it on the way to her VW. I know to never stay in the house when she says, "You're right, I'm wrong. Now, why don't you just go to sleep." That's a sure ticket to the ER, either for massive bruising, or to have Super Glue peeled from one or more delicate appendages.
Fortunately, though, I've learned my lessons, and have grown from them. Hollywood, though, still loves to show a woman get her revenge on a man that did her wrong. And, strangely enough, it seems to always make for pretty good viewing. Case in point: the new Ashley Judd/Tommy Lee Jones movie Double Jeopardy. A woman wronged who gets the chance to exact some revenge. And a pretty dang good movie, all things considered.
Miss Ashley stars as Libby Parsons, a lovely woman who woke up one morning on a sailboat and found herself covered with blood and suspected of murdering her husband, Nick (Bruce Greenwood). Now, I'm not giving anything away that you haven't seen a jillion times in the trailer, but she didn't kill her hubby. Ol' Nick ain't even dead! He set this all up to cash in on his own death, and let her take the fall while he launched a new life elsewhere. Libby learns of the plot while she's in the Big House, serving time for the murder she didn't commit, and, well, understandably, she's a trifle ticked off. Now paroled, she goes to a half-way house run by parole officer Travis Lehman (Tommy Lee Jones), and sets out to find her hubby, take back her son (given up for adoption), and make her darling hubby pay for destroying her life.
See, there's this little legal loophole, told to Libby by a lawyer-turned-convict that's in the Can with her. It's called "double jeopardy," and it states that you can't be tried for the same crime twice. Therefore, if she's done her time for killing her husband, once she gets out, she can go blast him like Sonny Corleone, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. (Not exactly what the law says, but, for these purposes....)
So, Libby breaks parole, and sets off to find Nick and her son, with Lehman in pursuit.
There's a lot I can say about this movie in the way of technique and style. Director Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy), working with his longtime cinematographer, Peter James, gives us a lot of travelogue shots of pretty places like British Columbia and New Orleans, and he does breathe some life into what, admittedly, is a clichéd theme. A few nice camera tricks, and lots of stylish sweeps and fades and such. All very nice touches, but a bit out of place at times. Bruce, this ain't A River Runs Through It.
In fact, my first thought after seeing this thing was, "Why didn't they just punch up the script a bit and make it another sequel to The Fugitive? Tommy Lee Jones' character here, Lehman, isn't quite as cocky and self-assured as Marshal Sam Gerard, but with some tweaks, it would've fit nicely into the character development that the second Fugitive movie, U.S. Marshals, provided.
But that's neither here nor there. Bottom line: nice work from Jones, per the norm. Ashley does very well for herself too. She proved that she could be tough as nails and still be feminine in Kiss The Girls, but here, she ups the ante by becoming driven by hatred. There are times here when her eyes just drain cold, and you can sense the vengeance boil up inside her. Other times, you can see all that bravery and temper just melt, and her eyes soften into a loving gaze. Is she at the same form she was with Ruby In Paradise? No, not by a long shot. But to have dinner at Hollywood's grown-up table, she's doing exactly what she has to -- show her range in more than one genre.
I do want to throw a kudo or two at Bruce Greenwood, too. Bruce is one of those guys you recognize from TV and feature bits (Disturbing Behavior, "St. Elsewhere"), but here, in a big supporting role, he busts into a category that few have been able to work well. He plays a very devious man, and he plays him charming and suave. That's a hard thing to do without becoming a Bond villain. Greenwood keeps his cool, and Beresford keeps him checked, to balance out that cool with a sense of evil.
Now, all that said, let me say quickly that this thing is no screaming threat to win any awards, nor is it the perfect thriller. Like I said, it's a bit trite at times; it's so predictable that if you're quick, you can blurt out lines of dialogue before the cast recites them. The main stumbling point in this movie, though, is the incredibly stupid ad campaign the studio devised for it. If you went totally blind into this movie, you'd find a nicely plotted thriller, capable of enough twists to keep things honest. But, rather than trust word of mouth, the Suits at Paramount sat back and said, "You know what? Our audience is basically stupid, so let's give away EVERY SINGLE PLOT TWIST in the two-minute trailer." And they do! They did it with flicks like Snake Eyes and Stepmom, and I wonder why they even bother to put the movies out in theatres.
Hey, Studio Boy, we don't need "Reader's Digest" trailers. In case you didn't learn anything from this summer, Mr. Suit, we, the moviegoers, showed you we like surprises! We like mysteries! We enjoyed The Blair Witch Project with its virtually unseen evil! We flipped over the last fantastic plot twist in The Sixth Sense. Why? Because we didn't know everything that was going to happen! Hello, Morons?! Anybody home?!
As I catch my breath now, and step away from my film-reel pulpit....
Folks, don't let my rant keep you from seeing Double Jeopardy. Spoilers aside, this is a nice ride through some familiar territory, with a fresh female face in the place of your ordinary macho action star. Ashley Judd is good, Tommy Lee Jones is great, and, you won't be disappointed when you walk out. You'll see good acting, an interesting story, and an extended version of the commercial you saw for months on TV.
Image copyright Paramount Pictures.
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in for observation