Let me see. Ashley Judd is married to this guy who is arrested and charged with massacring innocent civilians in Central America as a special ops agent in the Marine Corps. She's a lawyer and decides to defend him herself but, knowing nothing of Courts Martial, she hired ex-drunk Morgan Freeman to help her. Some shady stuff follows, the charges are withdrawn, and hubby turns out to be guilty after all and tries to off her. That's about all I understood.
I used to teach classes to Marines at New River Air Station and every other class or so, one of them would show up with a black eye. I finally mentioned this one night and a student asked, "What does that tell you about the Marine Corps?" The students told me a lot more about the Marine Corps than this movie does. According to the movie the Corps is made up of beefy ugly bruits with haircuts you wouldn't believe, blustering and pompous, but they melt away like Wusses before Ashley Judd's fierce determination.
I really like Ashley Judd, by the way. She has a trim figure and a plump, pretty, asymmetrical and highly expressive face. Her left eyebrow is always cocked in disbelief. She has dark greenish irises that have a tendency to roll heavenward when she's exasperated. And she's a competent actress too when given the chance to act. I like Morgan Freeman too. His face is made of lumps, in profile his nose seems lopped off at the end, and in this film his hair is long and wooly and combed crazily backward, as befits a recovering alcoholic. And he's the soul of reliability. If I wanted a doctor or a lawyer I'd look him up in one big jiffy. He can even be a credible drunk. Amanda Peet is properly sluttish but not really necessary. Paul Caveziel as the husband looks the part of the tough Marine but doesn't carry his weight, or maybe it's partly that the role doesn't give him a chance.
But -- well, then there's the plot. Forget about any sociopolitical comments on Special Ops in Central America. It's a murder mystery. All along we're led to believe along with Judd that the military is made up of a bunch of conniving morons and heavies. Dark cars and pickups follow Judd around. A gang of unidentified thugs jump out of nowhere and try to beat Freeman's brains out. (Between the two of them, Judd and Freeman spend half the movie with braces, black eyes, and bandages.) In the end, or so it seems, the bad guys aren't the bad guys after all, but the good guy is a bad guy, or else maybe the bad guys and the good guy were both bad guys, or -- well, you get the picture, even if I didn't. The climax is just another woman-who-discovers-her-trusted-partner-is-a-murdere-and-is-now-going-to-murder-her scene. He trusses her up and is about to kill her, although his expectations are unclear.
What I mean is, hubby has just had charges of mass murder withdrawn. He hasn't been acquitted so he's still chargeable and under suspicion. And Morgan Freeman has just uncovered evidence that hubby is guilty. Freeman calls Judd and gives her the dope. Now hubby is about to shoot his wife in their own home because she knows he's a murderer, right? But meanwhile Freeman knows too. And there will be blood all over the place if he shoots his wife. What does he have to gain by killing her? Absolutely nothing. It's as if, at this point, the writers had thrown away the rest of the script and said, "Let's stick in a woman-in-jeopardy climax. The audience is too stupid to notice that it doesn't belong."
Judd and Freeman aside, this movie really doesn't have much to recommend it.
It's doubly disappointing because the director was also responsible for the far superior, "One False Move."
Well, maybe some other time.
I used to teach classes to Marines at New River Air Station and every other class or so, one of them would show up with a black eye. I finally mentioned this one night and a student asked, "What does that tell you about the Marine Corps?" The students told me a lot more about the Marine Corps than this movie does. According to the movie the Corps is made up of beefy ugly bruits with haircuts you wouldn't believe, blustering and pompous, but they melt away like Wusses before Ashley Judd's fierce determination.
I really like Ashley Judd, by the way. She has a trim figure and a plump, pretty, asymmetrical and highly expressive face. Her left eyebrow is always cocked in disbelief. She has dark greenish irises that have a tendency to roll heavenward when she's exasperated. And she's a competent actress too when given the chance to act. I like Morgan Freeman too. His face is made of lumps, in profile his nose seems lopped off at the end, and in this film his hair is long and wooly and combed crazily backward, as befits a recovering alcoholic. And he's the soul of reliability. If I wanted a doctor or a lawyer I'd look him up in one big jiffy. He can even be a credible drunk. Amanda Peet is properly sluttish but not really necessary. Paul Caveziel as the husband looks the part of the tough Marine but doesn't carry his weight, or maybe it's partly that the role doesn't give him a chance.
But -- well, then there's the plot. Forget about any sociopolitical comments on Special Ops in Central America. It's a murder mystery. All along we're led to believe along with Judd that the military is made up of a bunch of conniving morons and heavies. Dark cars and pickups follow Judd around. A gang of unidentified thugs jump out of nowhere and try to beat Freeman's brains out. (Between the two of them, Judd and Freeman spend half the movie with braces, black eyes, and bandages.) In the end, or so it seems, the bad guys aren't the bad guys after all, but the good guy is a bad guy, or else maybe the bad guys and the good guy were both bad guys, or -- well, you get the picture, even if I didn't. The climax is just another woman-who-discovers-her-trusted-partner-is-a-murdere-and-is-now-going-to-murder-her scene. He trusses her up and is about to kill her, although his expectations are unclear.
What I mean is, hubby has just had charges of mass murder withdrawn. He hasn't been acquitted so he's still chargeable and under suspicion. And Morgan Freeman has just uncovered evidence that hubby is guilty. Freeman calls Judd and gives her the dope. Now hubby is about to shoot his wife in their own home because she knows he's a murderer, right? But meanwhile Freeman knows too. And there will be blood all over the place if he shoots his wife. What does he have to gain by killing her? Absolutely nothing. It's as if, at this point, the writers had thrown away the rest of the script and said, "Let's stick in a woman-in-jeopardy climax. The audience is too stupid to notice that it doesn't belong."
Judd and Freeman aside, this movie really doesn't have much to recommend it.
It's doubly disappointing because the director was also responsible for the far superior, "One False Move."
Well, maybe some other time.