Our split personiality reviewer (note her 3 ID's below) has some problems (tell me about it) with Double Jeopardy(maybe it should have been Triple?) All kidding aside she makes some good (bad) points in her review...
It's John Robie's girlfriend Louisa May again. Here is my assessment of "Double Jeopardy." I think I'll go by Abby Normal from now on, but if you like Lisa Fremont better, I'll use that. I hope you guys had fun in the Netherlands!
Poor Tommy Lee Jones. Poor me for having put all the effort into stealing a copy of the rough cut. Poor anybody involved in "Double Jeopardy." I understand that what I saw is not quite finished, but I really think it is beyond repair. The problems lie in the fundamentals: the script and the acting, and even the most sophisticated effects machines can't fix that.
This is supposed to be"The Fugitive" with a woman. They even got Tommy Lee Jones to play the same role. They probably figured they couldn't miss. They were wrong. "Double Jeopardy" is one of the most extreme examples of underestimating an audience's intelligence I have ever seen. There is no mystery, no subtlety.
"Double Jeopardy" suffers badly from "City of Angels" syndrome. This is where a film is almost ninety percent blatant exposition and explanation. It is kind of like watching a Dick and Jane book: "See pretty lady. See pretty lady bond with cute son. See husband be too perfect. See husband disappear in bloody mess. See pretty lady put in jail. See husband alive and well with pretty lady's best friend and cute son." See audience with heads in hands...
There are many understated ways to show the passage of time; in my version of "Double Jeopardy" they use Ashley Judd loudly saying, "I have learned a lot these past SIX YEARS." A montage of flipping calendar pages or a screenwide graphic flashing "six years later" would have been more tactful. Another example of the filmmakers' restraint was the careful insertion of the word "kiddo" into Ashley Judd's dialogue. They could have put a "kiddo" nametag on the boy, but instead they opted to have it be every other word out of his Mom's mouth. Good thing they did that, else me woodnt hav gottin it at da end!
What makes hitting us over the head with already predictable story elements worse is the acting of everyone except the major characters. Tomy Lee Jones was good as usual, Ashley Judd did what she could, and the bad guy husband was fine. The most distractingly bad people were the extras and the secondary characters. Seriously, I have never been that aware of extras in my life. It felt like the person directing them felt bad telling them what to do, so just let them be obviously conscious of the camera. Most of the minor characters suffered from the same I'm-trying-not-to-laugh-or-s mile expression as the extras. I felt uncomfortable watching them, and the fact that their lines were generally so unnatural didn't help.
There was one good thing about "Double Jeopardy" besides Tommy Lee Jones: the cinematography. The settings were beautiful and there were some interesting camera shots in the first third of the movie. Other than the fact that I was watching a stolen print in my own house, the camera work was the only thing that kept me from demanding my money back.
I'm trying to think of a way that they could save this movie. I'd like to think that the copy I watched was just a decoy and that they're holding the real thing in a heavily armed fortress, but I know that's just a fantasy. (Like they would shell out the extra money!) So, after all my thinking, I have decided that the one way they can rescue "Double Jeopardy" is to give it the small push it needs to earn a so-bad-it's-good rating. As it is, it's just bad, and that won't get anyone anywhere.
--Abby Normal
