Under Suspicion (2000)

User Rating:

6.5/10   

Director:

Stephen Hopkins

Writers (WGA):

John Wainwright (book)
Claude Miller (1981 screenplay Garde à vue) ...

Release Date:

2 June 2000 (Italy)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

Everyone has secrets. Some of them are crimes.

Plot:

A lawyer is asked to come to the police station to clear up a few loose ends in his witness report of a foul murder...

Plot Keywords:

Police | Murder | Toupee | Speech | Interrogation

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Gene Hackman	...	Henry Hearst
Morgan Freeman	...	Captain Victor Benezet
Thomas Jane	...	Detective Felix Owens
Monica Bellucci	...	Chantal Hearst
Nydia Caro	...	Isabella
Miguel Ángel Suárez	...	Superintendent
Pablo Cunqueiro	...	Detective Castillo
Isabel Algaze	...	Camille Rodriguez
Jacqueline Duprey	...	Maria Rodriguez
Luis Caballero	...	Paco Rodriguez
Patricia Beato	...	Darlita
Sahyly Yamile	...	Reina
Hector Travieso	...	Peter
Marisol Calero	...	Sergeant Arias
Vanessa Shenk	...	Sue Ellen Huddy

Also Known As:

Suspicion (France)
Third Degree (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated R for sexual content and language.

Runtime:

110 min | USA:111 min (TV)

Country:

France | USA

Language:

English | Italian | Spanish

Colour:

Colour (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

Finland:K-15 | South Korea:15 | Iceland:12 (original rating) | Iceland:16 (video rating) | Portugal:M/16 | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Brazil:14 | Chile:14 | France:U | Germany:12 | Ireland:18 | Netherlands:16 | Norway:15 | Peru:14 | Spain:13 | Switzerland:14 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:14 (canton of Vaud) | UK:15 | USA:R (certificate #37059)

Filming Locations:

San Juan, Puerto Rico

Company:

Revelations Entertainment

Trivia:

Stephen Hopkins wanted to cast Monica Bellucci after watching Malèna (2000) while on an overseas flight.

Goofs:

Factual errors: In Puerto Rico, 911 operators answer calls in Spanish, not English.

Quotes:

nm0000151 Capt. Victor Benezet: Go home. Put on a funny hat. Do whatever it is morons do.

Movie Connections:

Version of Garde à vue (1981)

Soundtrack:

La Diez

Puts me in mind of SE7EN...

Like SE7EN there is weird (albeit appropriate) music. Like SE7EN there is a jumpy, ADD-inflected title sequence. Like SE7EN this film is dark and dreary, a vision of an ill-lit and illicit milieu, raising far more questions than it answers. And Morgan Freeman is playing yet another world-weary detective, swamped by serial killings. There is even a young, hot-headed cop involved, although Thomas Jane (Detective Owens) is certainly no Brad Pitt. He was so grating in his part that I kept wishing he would get off the screen so the two leads could get at it.

And so they do. If in their last appearance together in UNFORGIVEN Hackman's character was tormenting Freeman's, then it is somehow fitting that here it is the latter's Capt. Victor Benezet who interrogates, berates, persecutes and ultimately breaks down the resistance of Hackman's Henry Hearst, an attorney who verily has a fool for a client. Capt. Benezet may position himself as the 'good' cop in the 'good cop/bad cop' scenarios he sets up with Detective Owens, and later, Detective Castillo (Pablo Cunqueiro); but he is ever questioning, ever probing, ever seeking in his interrogations the heart of this dark matter. He is even insinuated into his witnesses' recollections, through a cool cinematographic trick appearing and asking questions in situ in the midst of the film's flashbacks.

In spite of interruptions from underlings, superiors, and ultimately Hearst's spouse Chantal (Monica Bellucci in a tight, controlled performance) , over the course of the film one by one the lies and half-truths are stripped away, leaving Hearst with only his moral turpitude and his pitifully sparse self-justifications intact. It is only another interruption from one of Benezet's people that jerks us away from the sleazy, soul-shorn sight. Yet the revelation that follows twists and tears, sending our belief in this story and its implications into a dizzying, perhaps fatal spin.

In the ending sequence Chantal and Henry Hearst walk towards each other, but somehow do not connect. They end up sitting apart. In a way that relates to the way UNDER SUSPICION acts upon its viewers. Sorry, no neat, happy ending here. Not even a coherent one.