Vashirdfel
Simply A Masterpiece
Actuakers
One of my all time favorites.
Staci Frederick
Blistering performances.
wcgreen-65865
Switch off your disbelief before watching Double Jeopardy and you might enjoy this movie. Otherwise, it will drive you crazy with all the ridiculous plot flaws. For starters, the premise is flat out wrong. The first amendment does protect people from being convicted twice for the same crime. The same crime means just that.... same place, time, circumstances and victim. It is not a blank check for someone falsely convicted of a crime to go on a crime spree to avenge their wrongful conviction. In essence, this movie is just one improbable... if not impossible... scenario after another. Very little that takes place in this movie could or would ever happen in real life so the viewer must be assumed to be a complete imbecile to swallow it all without question.It wastes little time getting to the first impossible to believe situation. Woman's husband buys her an obscenely expensive yacht out of the blue to show his utter devotion to her. They spend a romantic evening on it yet she wakes up the next morning alone and covered with blood. She walks around as if in a daze and discovers a bloody knife which of course she picks up at the precise moment that the coast guard pulls up along side the boat. This was a scene in almost every episode of the Perry Mason TV series, and each time I would say "Do NOT pick up the murder weapon!" but they ALWAYS did.The rest of the movie is just more of the same. For example, when she finds out her husband is actually alive, why didn't she simply dial up her lawyer and tell him? Lawyers love to find out that their clients were falsely convicted. It would have taken him all of a day or two to retain a private detective to track down hubby and prove he was indeed very much alive then Voila! .... she walks free, hubby goes to prison along with her best friend/accomplice to her false conviction and she gets her son back. But that wouldn't have filled two plus hours of screen time.If you have two hours to kill and nothing better to do then you might consider watching this movie. Much better to spend that time watching much higher quality entertainment such as C-Span or the Weather Channel.
Python Hyena
Double Jeopardy (1999): Dir: Bruce Beresford / Cast: Ashley Judd, Tommy Lee Jones, Bruce Greenwood, Annabeth Gish, Michael Gaston: Recycled crap told entirely through its theatrical trailer. It is basically The Fugitive starring a woman. Ashley Judd is sentenced to six years in prison for the murder of her husband. Her prints are found on the weapon yet she claims innocence. Her son is kept under supervision but one call leads to the suspicion that her husband isn't dead after all. This all boils down to revenge fantasy outcome. Director Bruce Beresford does his best but his cast travel familiar territory. Judd is playing Harrison Ford in drag and adds absolutely nothing new to the premise other than being a woman. After released she searches for answers and we all know where that leads. Tommy Lee Jones is ideal because he pursued Ford in The Fugitive, so he can merely recite. Bruce Greenwood as her so-called deceased husband is indeed despicable and nearly kills her. He will be placed in a difficult position when rendered to a choice. It is unfortunate that one of those choices wasn't choosing a different script to act in. Annabeth Gish plays Judd's friend whom she leaves her son with. This role is small yet pivotal and hopeless. Pointless recycling of a plot that we have seen hundreds of time in better films. The script was in double jeopardy from the start. Score: 2 / 10
Robert J. Maxwell
Very briefly, Ashley Judd is married to Greenwood, apparently happily. They have one infant. Gish is their best friend. Greenwood fakes his own murder after setting the stage for the arrest and conviction of Judd. She accidentally discovers that Greenwood and Gish have betrayed her and run off with the kid.Six years go by. Judd is paroled under the supervision of the hard-nosed Tommy Lee Jones. But she skips, and by means of some tricks discovers that Greenwood has murdered Gish and moved to New Orleans where he is now a pillar of the community. This greatly irritates Judd, who tracks him down, with Jones in hot pursuit.There are some pretty good action sequences. It's not often an escaped prisoner, manacled to a car door, will start the car and race it off the ferry's aft ramp. And there are other exciting moments. At one point, Judd is knocked out and wakes up to find herself locked into a coffin in one of those above-ground mausoleums in New Orleans' famous All Saints Cemetery.Judd isn't bad. She gets the job done. But she's been able to do more than that in some of her other work, most notably "Heat." Still, it's enthralling to witness her features at times turn into a pageant of fleeting expressions. Tommy Lee Jones, an inventive actor, is more or less wasted in a reprise of his role as the obsessed and gelid representative of justice in "The Fugitive, some five or six years earlier. Too bad.As thrillers go, this one isn't as repulsive as many others. Is there a car chase? Are you kidding? The "double jeopardy" business is a lot of hooey. The attempt to jack up suspense -- leaving open the question of whether Judd will walk up to her delinquent husband and blow his brains out in public -- interferes with the purer motive that these commercial enterprises require -- namely, a mother's desire to raise her baby.
SnoopyStyle
Nick Parsons (Bruce Greenwood) is a successful investment dealer with loving wife Libby (Ashley Judd) and son. He takes her out on their new boat but he goes missing with signs of struggle. She is convicted for his murder. She asks her friend Angela Green (Annabeth Gish) to adopt her son instead of leaving him a ward of the state. Angela goes away with her son. Libby tracks them down and her son let slip that Nick is still alive. Prison lawyer Margaret tells her about double jeopardy that she can't be convicted again even if she kills her husband. After 6 years in prison, she is paroled under the supervision of hard-nosed Travis (Tommy Lee Jones) at the halfway house.The basic concept is questionable at best. On top of that, it forces the movie to be a slow grind for the trial. The movie is better off skipping much of that section. The murder trial feels very rushed. It's where a montage could really help or at least something to drive a more exciting opening. Once it gets to Tommy Lee Jones, this movie moves well. Judd and Jones have a good Fugitive feel. It's got good tension, but one must always overlook the questionable basic concept.
