Double Jeopardy

Day 178 - 6/27/09 - Movie #177

BEFORE: OK, just one more legal thriller, then I'm back on the police beat. The mention of the "double jeopardy" clause in the last movie leads me to this film starring Ashley Judd, last seen in "Kiss the Girls", Tommy Lee Jones, last seen in "No Country for Old Men", and Bruce Greenwood, last seen in..."Star Trek"? Boy, I'm going to be really good at the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game when I'm all caught up on my movies. Ashley Judd was in "Kiss the Girls" with Morgan Freeman, who was in "The Bucket List" with Jack Nicholson, who was in "A Few Good Men" with Kevin Bacon. Tommy Lee Jones was in "A Prairie Home Companion" with Meryl Streep, who was in "The River Wild" with Kevin Bacon. And Bruce Greenwood was in "Thirteen Days" with Kevin Costner, who was in "JFK" with Kevin Bacon. Yep, still got it...

THE PLOT: A woman framed for her husband's murder suspects he is still alive; as she has already been tried for the crime, she can't be re-prosecuted if she finds and kills him.

AFTER: So let me get this straight - instead of contacting the authorities, or attorneys, or private investigators to prove that her husband is still alive (she gives up after just one phone call...), a suggestion from a fellow inmate (and former lawyer) causes her to serve out her whole prison term, just so she can track him down and kill him, and NOT be tried a second time for his murder? So she gets to see her son in what, 10 years instead of a possible 1? How is that better?

This could be the worst legal advice ever given out on film - no, she can't be tried again for her husband's murder - but assuming she finds him and shoots him, she could be tried for attempted murder, manslaughter, wrongful death, wreckless endangerment, etc. Plus gun possession, car theft, breaking and entering, and any other crimes that she commits in the course of tracking him down. The double jeopardy statute is specific, it's not some magic shield that's protecting her from all future prosecution!

At one point in the film, Judd's character manages to drive a car, which she is handcuffed to, off of a ferry in the middle of the lake - the car starts to sink, with her in it. What the heck did she THINK was going to happen? It's a perfect metaphor for her situation, as she keeps getting into more and more trouble, and only a series of increasingly unlikely circumstances keeps saving her neck.

You know, if this had been made as another sequel to "The Fugitive", with Tommy Lee Jones reprising his role as U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard, instead of a washed-up parole officer, I might have enjoyed this more - but it's not, and Ashley Judd is no Harrison Ford, or even Wesley Snipes. There's a line near the end where Jones' character jokingly threatens to "arrest her for stupidity". Oh, if only that were possible...

RATING: 4 out of 10 Kandinskys