Rating: 
Summary: well acted, tight plot, (better than some review[er]s say).
Review: This movie with Ashley Judd [Mrs. Dario Franchitti] and Morgan Freeman, is well acted with a fairly tight plot. It's much better than some of the reviews give it credit for. It makes one question the military establishment considering the lengths they went to in the movie to silence her and others around her.
(See the movie and you'll see what I mean.) Morgan Freeman, as always, is especially good as the sometimes drunk, seemingly disinterested, lawyer, who helps her and who the military establishment considers as a thorn in their side[s] (to be polite). Refers to VHS version [which I picked up fairly cheap-$3.99 + tax].
Rating: 
Summary: I hate, hate, hate this movie.
Review: Maybe I'm a little bit biased--I come from a military family--but I found this movie to be horribly disrespectful to the Armed Services. SPOILERS The fact that Marines go around giving women miscarrages in this movie isn't suspensful or thought-provoking; it's stupid. It's not often that something can offend me, but this movie actively pisses me off. The plot is full of holes; nothing makes a shred of sense. The fact that a civilian lawyer is at a court martial wouldn't happen. As I said before, Marines not only give women miscarriages, they're portrayed as jackals that ENJOY doing it. And the ending? The ending is weak, stupid, and seems hashed together. Don't see this movie. You'll be a much better person for it.
Rating: 
Summary: Really Great Movie!
Review: This suspenseful drama starring Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman is really awesome! The surprising turn of events will keep you on the edge of your seat, and the performances are spectacular. Ashley Judd captures the intense emotion of her role exceptionally, and I think this should have been oscar-nominated. I also thought that Morgan Freeman was perfect for the role of the alchoholic lawyer. They are both excellent actors, and their chemistry is undeniable. This is a definete must-see!
Rating:
Summary: high crimes
Review: there's a scene where amanda peet walks by a military guy and she's wearing almost nothing and says "hi GI joe." now thats 10X as effective as any other motivation that those "be all you can be" commercials do, and that scene alone is why i bought the DVD amanda peet is asom
Rating:
Summary: Ashley Judd was good but these movie pushed my buttons
Review: "High Crimes" was one of those movies that just started pushing the wrong buttons on me, which surprised me because usually any film with Morgan Freeman in it is going to be a safe bet. The man is one of the finest actors around and his playing God in the new Jim Carey movie would probably be considered typecasting by everyone who has worked with him. But I am not going to blame him for why I got on the wrong side of this movie, nor am I going to point a finger at screenwriters Yuri Zeltser and Cary Bickley, becaue I am pretty sure the objectionable elements were in the original novel by Joseph Finder. Freeman is paired with Ashley Judd in this 2002 film, five years after they worked together in "Kiss the Girls." However, this time Judd does the heavy lifting and the basic premise is quite compelling. Judd plays Claire Kubik, a defense attorney whose is about to make partner at a big law firm. Life is good. But then her husband is arrested by the FBI and changed with having murdered civilians is El Salvador when he was in the Army. That is only half the shock, because Claire also finds out that he married her under an assumed name. Her husband is going to be court-martialed for the massacre and if found guilty he will be sentenced to death. But when she sees the young first lieutenant (Adam Scott) assigned to defend the case, she makes herself co-counsel, and, to help her understand the playing field, she tracks down Charlie Grimes (Freeman), an ex-military lawyer and recovering alcoholic. The character's alcoholism is one of the aforementioned buttons, because of course the sobriety of Grimes comes into play. I will grant that the situation is contrived well in terms of the plot, but contrivance becomes the key word to describe this plot element. The net benefit is a mild sense of concern because, well, Grimes is played by Morgan Freeman and is clearly a good guy. The other button that gets pushed is that "High Crimes" is another one of these films were the United States military is portrayed as being psychopathic killers. Not only that, they are INCOMPETENCE psychopathic killers. Claire's husband claims somebody else is to blame and that there is a conspiracy going on and eventually she starts getting too close to the truth and shadowy figures try to take care of her in a way that is ultimately guaranteed to shine even more publicity on this case. Fortunately, some of the shadowy figures are on Claire's side. I want to point out that my disdain for the U.S. military being portrayed as incompetent psychopathic killers existed long before the war to liberate Iraq. Just as I got tired of villains turning out to be Nazis and drug crazed Vietnam vets, I am already tired of villains being ultra-right military men whose ideological beliefs overwhelms their professionalism and sense of morality. Claire's husband says the real killer is a guy named Hernandez (Juan Carlos Hernández), now a Major, who looks brazenly homicidal. But the military is covering things up apparently, so it is not a big deal. Judd's performance is what hold the movie together on these terms. She might be questioning everything her husband ever told her since the day they met but in the courtroom here legal instincts take over. Every motion she makes might be denied, but she knows how to dissect witnesses with a nice combination of sharp questions and pointed attitude. This is one of those films where it ain't over until its over, so I was ticked off, but I was also entertained, so if you have different buttons than I do you will obviously enjoy this film more than I did. Also, a tip of the hat to Tom Bower as FBI Special Agent Mullins, who gets off some nice shots during a scene with Claire on a park bench; always nice to see a veteran actor milk his little scene for everything it is worth.
Rating:
Summary: Freeman/Judd - Another Excellent Pairing
Review: Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd team up again in this courtroom thriller, which engages the viewer despite its worn plot and obvious ending. The reason it doesn't descend to a level consistent with the screenplay's unoriginality is the superior acting by the three principal performers. Claire (Ashley Judd) and Tom (James Caviezel) are living an idyllic and romantic married life, trying hard to have a baby. Everything is going swimmingly until one day Tom is arrested and charged with murder and war crimes dating back to his military service and raid in El Salvatore years earlier. It seems Tom's entire identity is a lie and his name is really Ron Chapman, a former Special Forces commando. Claire, a prominent defense lawyer (how convenient), takes up his case determined to prove his innocence, choosing to believe his denials despite the fact that everything she knows about him is a fabrication. She hires Charlie Grimes (Morgan Freeman) to assist her because until he became a broken down alcoholic, he was once one of the top lawyers in the military. The love story, courtroom spectacle, a ruthless general, are all "juggled" perfectly to combine into a complete story. Nonetheless we seem to have seen it in different ways many times before. Morgan Freeman once again proves to be master over even weak scripts, letting his powerful performance overlook any production flaws. His interaction with Judd is wonderful, treating her with kindness and respect, never playing on the fact that he has much more professional experience. Judd is tough as nails and doesn't back down to pompous military officers or thugs trying to intimidate her. Looks somewhat like Demi Moore in "A Few Good Men". Jim Caviezel rounds out the cast with a strong performance as the accused. This is a tough character because he is such an enigma. Caviezel delivered a strong portrayal of a mysterious character in "Angel Eyes", so he had some experience with this type of role. The viewer is not sure to trust him, yet he appears to believe his lies/truth completely. This film doesn't fool anyone with its surprise ending, but it does deliver good suspense, a tried and true formula and some excellent performances. I still recommend it to fans of the genre or to those who want to see the stars deliver yet more stellar performances.****
Rating:
Summary: Shocking Ending
Review: "High Crimes" finds Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman reunited and they make a truly brilliant team. Judd plays a young lawyer whose husband finds himself taken down by FBI agents while out Christmas shopping in San Francisco. The crime? Murder.
He swears he didn't do it and Judd trusts him because she knows her own husband. Or does she? Judd finds herself on a marine base in southern California defending her husband on murder charges in a military courtroom. She finds that the laws are a little different when it comes to the military. She decides she needs to get an ace military lawyer who can help her to defend the man she loves.
In come Freeman who plays an ex-military lawyer who just happens to be a drunk. He's been clean and sober for quite a while but it doesn't take long for things to spin out of control in this story of deceit and suprise twists.
I'll be honest and say that I didn't see what happened in the last few minutes of the film coming. This film will keep you on the edge of your seat from beginning to end. Both Judd and Freeman give brilliant performances as well as the suppporting actors and actresses including Amanda Peet as Judd's little sister.
Rating: 
Summary: The second time not a charm?
Review: High Crimes is a drama, centered around the efforts of San Francisco based lawyer Claire Kubik (Ashley Judd) to vindicate her ex-marine husband Tom (James Caviezel), who is charged with the murder of some villagers, while on a mission in El Salvador, twelve years previous. Husband Tom, (real name Ron) was a member of a small unit, sent to ferret out a terrorist. Though what actually happened is in dispute, the end result was nine dead civilians killed by Marine fire. Charged with "high crimes", Tom is held for trial in a USMC base in San Lazaro, CA. His appointed counsel is green Marine lawyer, Lt. Embry (Adam Scott). Claire joins the defense team, but seeks someone with expertise in military procedures to bolster the team. Enter "wild card" Charlie Grimes, (Morgan Freeman) a civilian lawyer with past JAG experience. Together, along with Claire's sister, Jackie (Amanda Peet), the defense team works to uncover the "truth". Freeman and Judd star in their second film together, having first worked together in 1998's "Kiss the Girls". And indeed, it is the interplay between the two that creates most of the interest in the story. However, this alone is not enough, and the illogical plot twists added to create excitement and maintain interest, produce a rather formulamatic tale, that ultimately leaves one disappointed. Freeman's performance is steady, but not special. Judd does an excellent job displaying a wide range of emotions. Yet neither can overcome the weakness of the story. Director Carl Franklin's commentary track, provides a wealth of trivia, and too often he tends to speak of his other films and filmmaking in general rather than comment specifically on what we are seeing. High Crimes is a film that is OK to see once. If the ending disappoints you, you probably won't give it a second viewing.
Rating:
Summary: Casualties of war
Review: "Wake up and smell the napalm," says JAG-corps burnout Charlie Grimes (Morgan Freeman) to high-powered civilian lawyer Claire Kubik (Ashley Judd), and not because it smells like victory. In Charlie's professional opinion, Claire and her client - who's also her husband (Super-Hottie Jim Caviezel) - are screwed: They're enmeshed in a conspiracy that reaches so far up the ranks of the U.S. Marine Corps that God Almighty, Attorney at Law, couldn't negotiate a sentence reduction. Claire and Tom have a fabulous marriage, satisfying careers, a gorgeous Marin County, Calif., house and a shared desire to start a family. Then the other army boot drops: Tom is abruptly taken into FBI custody and whisked off to the San Lazaro base for a military trial. His court-appointed military counsel is a wet-behind-the-ears First Lieutenant named Embry (cutie Adam Scott), who's up against the vastly more experienced Major Waldron (Michael Gaston). The shaken Claire is suddenly face to face with Tom's whopper of a secret past: His name isn't really Tom Kubik, it's Ron Chapman; he used to be a Marine Corps special operative; and he's wanted by the military for war crimes committed in El Salvador in 1988. The wife in Claire is confused and wounded by recent events, but the pit-bull lawyer in her doesn't hold with kangaroo courts, so she appoints herself Tom/Ron's co-counsel and recruits the wily Grimes (concerns about his history of alcoholism notwithstanding) to help her beat the stars-and-bars system. All the evidence points to Tom's guilt, and the Marine Corps is clearly determined to get the trial over with in record time. And so the race is on: Can Claire and Charlie impeach the existing evidence and uncover facts that will exonerate Tom before the USMC ties up the last loose threads of this cynical cover-up? Based (rather loosely) on the popular legal thriller by Joseph Finder, this preposterous spectacle is given a certain undeserved credibility by Freeman's consummate professionalism and portions of Judd's uneven performance - her quiet near-breakdown following a high-stakes bluff against a sleekly scary, high-ranking military muckety-muck (Bruce Davison, in reptilian mode) is devastating. But their best efforts are undermined by contrived suspense sequences, a pointless subplot involving Claire's flaky, trashy sister (Amanda Peet), and a formulaic thriller ending that's so predictable and ridiculous (almost as ridiculous as the coda is cutely upbeat) that it's hard to watch with a straight face.
Rating: 
Summary: There is such a thing as 'too many twists'.
Review: There is such a thing as 'too many twists'. Summary:
Claire Kubik (Ashley Judd) is a high-powered lawyer that is married to Tom Kubik/Ron Chapman (James Caviezel), a former Marine turned 'collector' (I think that's what he is; they don't ever really say). When some kids break into their house, the police take fingerprints and realize that Tom/Ron is actually a 'wanted' Marine because of his participation in the murders of some innocent peasants in El Salvador 10 some odd years before. So, after doing their Christmas shopping one evening, Tom/Ron is arrested by the FBI and sent to a military base to await trial for murder. Of course Claire decides she is going to defend him and picks up Charlie Grimes (Morgan Freeman) who has successfully defended a case against a military court before, as co-counsel. With a bunch of twists and turns, Claire eventually gets Tom/Ron free only to find out that he really was the one that did it. In the end, Tom/Ron tries to kill her but with the help of one of the peasants that survived the attack (Emilio Rivera (I)), Tom/Ron is killed and Claire is free to set up shop with Charlie as attorneys. My Comments:
In retrospect, this movie is pretty bad. I was sort of entertained by the movie when watching it, but was never really sucked into it and was able to predict every plot twist. The major problem with the movie is that it is so contrived. What are the chances a defense lawyer is going to marry an ex-marine in hiding that is in need of an excellent defense lawyer? What are the chances that a peasant from that very village would live in the same city where all of this is taking place? The kids breaking into the house at the beginning of the movie makes no sense. And the biggest problem with the entire movie is the final twist when we find out that Tom/Ron did actually do it. When we find this out the entire movie falls apart. Why would the general dismiss the case? Why would the person that Tom/Ron said did do it, Maj. James Hernandez (Juan Carlos Hernández), act the way he did? It was just too forced to be a convincing and compelling story. I should mention that Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman are good in this, but then they are good in most of the films they do. But even their decent acting can't overcome the poor story and plot. As for James Caviezel, I don't particularly care for him as an actor and even though he was not too bad, his performance in The Count of Monte Cristo was much better than this. Overall, the movie was a let down, even though I did not have high expectations going into it. There are much better movies out there; this one is not worth your time.
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