Under Suspicion

Rating:
Summary: Morgan Freeman takes on Gene Hackman in Under Suspicion
Review: Under Suspicion is about a detective played by Morgan Freeman (Kiss The Girls, Se7en) who brings Gene Hackman (Mississippi Burning, Absolute Power) in an interrogation room and starts questioning him on murder and rape cases. This mystery mindboggler does deliver the goods but only up to a vast certain point and then it's all like, ok. Only fueled by the "kinetic" power of both Freeman and Hackman and the direction of Stephen Hopkins, examples would have to be all the interrogation room scenes and when Freeman tries to imagine that he is there with Hackman who rewinds his every step. Also starring Thomas Jane and the ever so hot and spicy Moncica Bellucci. Yet again another movie where Freeman plays a cop and Hackman plays a political figure but hey who cares, their good at it.

Rating:
Summary: "Everyone has secrets. Some of them are crimes."
Review: The heavyweight casting of "Under Suspicion" might be so impressive that it ultimately hurts the film. Certainly the idea of having Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman in a room going after each other in a lengthy police interrogation is going to be worth the watching, but given who the principles are director Stephen Hopkins may be stacking the deck too much in terms of how we resolve the film's ambiguities. After all, we fully expect Freeman to be playing a good cop and you can never really look at any character Hackman is playing without wondering what he is really up to. The tag line for this film only serves to emphasize this idea: "Everyone has secrests. Some of them are crimes."

This 2000 drama is a remake, after the peculiar manner of such things, of the 1981 French film "Garde à vue." This time the setting is in San Juan, Puerto Rico, which allows the film to have an exotic element while retaining the rules of American jurisprudence. During the celebration of San Sebastian's Feast police captain Victor Benezet (Freeman) asks prominent attorney Henry Hearst (Hackman) to come in and answer a few questions about the statement he gave about finding the body of a murdered girl. This is the second such murder in the last couple of weeks and the police are trying to capture what they fear is a serial killer. But as Hearst answers Benezet's questions more and more holes appear in his story, which raises even more questions about not only what the lawyer was doing when he discovered the body, but what other things he has been up to in recent weeks.

Clearly we are to think that Hearst is guilty, but from the start we have the feeling that there is more that is going on here than meets the eye. But the more Benezet uncovers Hearst's questionable interesting in "young" women and his troubled marriage with the beautiful Chantal (Monica Bellucci), the more we become convinced that there is something missing, some key piece to the puzzle that we do not yet understand. Herding us in this direction are the frequent pronouncements by Det. Felix Owens (Thomas Jane), who is investigating the murders, that Hearst in absolutely guilty. This guy in trying to drive the nails into the coffin way too soon and even sabotages the interrogation in his eagerness to get to the part when Hearst gets executed for his crimes.

The fact that this is a criminal investigation obscures that what we have here is a psychological drama. Benezet believes that he can find the truth by unraveling the layers of lies and obfuscations that Hearst has created about his life and personal habits. Step by step the interrogation strips away not only Hearst's secrets but his toupee as well. To get Hearst to crack Benezet brings Chantal Hearst into the process, hoping that she will allow them to search the house and asking her questions that illuminate more lies in what her husband has been telling the police.

Part of the attraction here is that Hearst fights back. He knows that Benezet has recently been divorced and is able to put together some telling guesses about the glass house in which the captain is living. Hearst knows how the game is played and is sharp enough to know when the police are overplaying their hand. He is a respected member of the community, supposedly giving them ten minutes of his time on his way to give a speech at a fundraiser, and he knows that bringing him down could make the careers of Benezet and Owens. But the main strength of the paper is that whatever the shortcomings of the script Hackman and Freeman make you pay attention. I would have loved to have seen them do this as a stage play, without the Hopkins constantly showing us in flashbacks what the two men are talking about, and letting these two heavyweights carry the entire thing.

In the end, what you think about "Under Suspicion" comes down to whether or not you buy the ending. I can see how many viewers would have problems catching and understanding the "why" for what happens. I picked it up the first time simply because I was paying more attention to a look in the eyes more than what was being said at the crucial moment. Be fully prepared to watch this film twice, so that you can reassure yourself that what happens at the end comes both logically and emotionally from all that comes before it. I think you will be able to see how it makes sense, although you might not appreciate that the came comes to an end with a quiet surprise rather than a big shock.