Hey folks, Harry here. The trailer for this film feels a bit... lacking to me, but one never knows for sure. Apparently our faithful MC Chill Wizard B saw an advance screening of this film with no score... which can really slow a film down. So, perhaps the film will play much better when it's all wrapped up. But for now, here's how it looks. Beware of spoilers.
got a pass to see double jeopardy - tommy lee jones and ashley judd prison/chase/intrigue type thing - with a couple friends, which usually enhances a movie-going experience - movies on the solo tip have their place, but you know what i mean...
only thing missing was original music - soundtrack type stuff, supposedly, but who cares, really?
it's another fugitive type movie for tommy lee jones, and though he's not a marshall of any sort here - instead playing a ex-law professor-turned parole officer/halfway house manage - but sure does a lot of cross-country tracking and running after the fugitive on hand, ashley judd.
ill try not to spoil anything, just give the extended version of what the trailers tell you - judd plays a woman with the cool lake-side house, the tow-headed cutesy little boy, the enterprising husband (played by canadian bruce greenwood - the sweet hereafter, exotica and that long-since cancelled but alright show Nowhere man) - he does something vaguely corporate and there seems to be some sort of trouble brewing on the business tip, and he likes art by candinsky (is that spelled correctly - i dont know much abpout art) which is sort of vaguely important, but not really... he buys her a sail boat and they take it for a test run, have some sex (judd has a really nice back but the audience laughed at the sex itself, which ends sort of bizarrely - kind of more realistic, probably, but you dont reaqlly know he's done till he stops - i guess what im trying to say is that mr. greenwood, a talented actor, didnt really sell the orgasm, so titters sort of abounded) and go to sleep ... judd wakes up to find herself covered in blood and bloody footprints leading to the railings on the deck of the boat, and she finds a bloody knife and picks it up - and the coast guard arrives, catching her red-handed, literally. (i apologize for that, i dont know what came over me. i should probably lie down before i start dishing out puns and knock knock jokes...) anyhow - she's accused of his murder - there was a 2 million dollars insurance policy for him, and the business problems were pretty serious, so there's her motive. so she goes to prison cause there's too much evidence (but still no body) against her and tells a friend of hers (Annabeth Gish - Mystic Pizza, SLC Punk) to adopt her son. soon, she stops getting visits from them and cant find them at all. so, taking advice from some friendly inmates - no explanation why they're nice to her and don't just try to make little ashley toss their salads or anythign else requiring a toss or two - and makes calls to track gish and her son down - and finds out her husband is alive and leaving with the two of them. one of her new prison buddies turns out to be a lawyer (this woman was michael douglas' lawyer in disclosure and a detective in judd's last movie, kiss the girls - roma maffia is her name - imdb is great) and explains the 5th amendment to judd and so the audience can understand the title and why the movie has nothing to do with the second round of the game show hosted by alex trebek. the 5th amendment says that a person cannot be tried for the same crime twice, so ms. inmate/ex-lawyer says that if her husband is alive, she should go and kill him, and no one can do anythign about it. it's a funny moment and a cool idea, but not enought to float a movie on. the rest of the film is judd trying to track her child and husband and gish down and avoid her parole officer - played by jones, who has some issues of his won, which are never explored past epidermal levels (remember when kids used to get you with that "you're epidermis is showing!" joke? i know it wasnt just me that fell for it the first time).
there's some good car stunts and an okay chase scene, but, action-wise, it's pretty lightweight, so the dramatic elements are probably supposed to keep it all going, but ashley judd always has that cool remove thing going, no matter what film she's in, and characters are introduced and dissappear with the bare minimum of explanation or motivation - gish and the two inmates, especially. judd's 6 years in prison pass in a matter of minutes, and she looks exactly the same as when she checked in - just a little less made up - and somehow, she's made friends with people, but they dissapear from the movie as soon as she gets her parole. and jones tracks her too easily for mst of the movie - he just shows up minutes behind her, with no explanation, when he first gets on her trail.
bruce beresford, who did good stuff liek breaker morant back in the day, okay stuff like driving miss daisy, cool stuff like black robe and horrible stuff like silent fall and last dance (the sharon stone death row movie, so he apparently has a soft spot for women in prison). his work has suffered deteriorating effects over the years, and he doesn't recover with this one - throwing out another heavy-handed and mostly boring product. jones is good - he's pretty much alsways good - but he needs to turn down these running after people projects, although im sure they pay him well. bruce greenwood is appropriately morally bankrupt and charming as the not-so-nice husband, but he's pretty much always good, too. judd sure looks excellent and has a pretty voice, but she always seems separated from everything that's going on and comes off as very replacable - i still think her best work was in smoke, as stockard channing and harvey kietel's kid, heat and normal life. she's in determined kiss the girls mode here, and i guess that film must have made enough money to land her this job. she's more intesting with a pronounced edge, and she's sort of edgeless in this one.
my friends (one guy, one girl, if that matters) didn't enjoy it much either, but i didn't grill them or anything, but they seemed to have the same feelings/complaints as me.
the film needs some trimming down - it's only an hour and 45 minutes, but it just doesn't feel tight - maybe it wasn't all the way done. the prison stuff is so thrown together and silly it's laughable, but the chase is at least engaging, and the conclusion no surprise but alright. another dissapointing film, really, im still waiting for something mind-blowing, heart-racing, eye-opening, anything hyphenated like that....
