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Double Jeopardy

Double Jeopardy

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Exciting!
Review: I really enjoyed this film. Tommy Lee Jones and Ashley Judd both gave excellent performances. This is a thrilling film that hopefully you will appreciate as much as I did. I recommend this film highly!!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: predictable movie
Review: This is basically a "Fugitive" movie with a female as the lead character played by Ashley Judd. Tommy Lee Jones revived his role that he does best by tracking down the wanted person only to have a change of heart subsequently as he knew for certain that the wanted person is innocent. It's interesting to have the Australian director, Bruce Beresford to direct this kind of genre movie who is probably better known for his directional work in "Driving Miss Daisy". In terms of progressive story telling, this movie delivered but for us who are expecting more punch & more uncalled for surprise(s), this movie is certain to disappoint. Many times, the bad person in the movie had got the opportunity to kill Lippy (Ashley Judd) but every time, he procrastinated & in the end, it's the good guy that saved the day. Even the fighting sequences weren't different from other thriller movies. Overall, this is an Ashley Judd's movie as Tommy Lee Jones' screen time appearance is secondary & he is more like a supporting actor rather than a lead male actor but still, I guess his name sells the movie. For a quiet night viewing, go for it but if you are looking for that extra bit more, find something else.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Tommy Lee Jones, WHAT were you thinking?
Review: In a bid to make yet ANOTHER "Fugitive" esque film, Tommy Lee Jones stars in this excuse for a movie, Double Jeopardy. Seeing the trailer basically means you've seen all of the film, as it bears absolutely no redeeming qualities, or any surprises to speak of.

From a man who went from playing Samuel Gerard in The Fugitive, and Dwight McClusky in the excellent Natural Born Killers, to sink as low as this truly must be a dark point in his career. We can only hope he's seen the light, and shunned this movie as all true movie-a-holics have.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Entertaining but chic
Review: Double Jeopardy

Actual Review: **1/2 [out of four stars]

'Double Jeopardy' did not live up to its trailer. The film is very mellow for the most part and there is not any suspense. I suggest for those who have not seen this movie and want to to still not see this movie. It is entertaining but there are more entertaining films. It is perfectly fine for kids to see this film. I do not know why on earth it was rated R.

Janet Maslin did not like this movie at all and said that she found the premise of it to be unreal and unexciting.

Roger Ebert gave it two and a half like me and said it was somewhat entertaining but really a waste of your time.

'Double Jeopardy' was MPAA Rated R for language, a scene of sexuality and some violence.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Not bad, but disappointing.
Review: If you see double jeopardy as just another suspense thriller it is not bad. The idea is reasonably original, the acting is passable. However, after the Fugitive and U.S. Marshalls I do not realy get excited when Tommy Lee Jones starts chasing somebody all over the country and Double Jeopardy does not offer anything more then that. Another problem is, that the whole basis of the plot is nonsense. The idea of 'Double Jeopardy' only aplies to the same crime and the same crime means that time and location must also be the same, not just the victim. Last but not least, the characters are flat. Not the fault of the actors, they just do not have anything to work with. On the whole I say: stick to the Fugitive.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Triple Jeopardy
Review: The "third" jeopardy is encountered by anyone foolish enough to invest in this video. I love TL Jones, but his talents were wasted here. The plot is ludicrous, the acting is mediocre, and the legal premise on which the entire movie is based is inaccurate. (Check out Ashley's beautifully manicured fingernails when she's supposedly working in the prison laundry!)

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Just plain awful
Review: This movie is just plain bad. It starts out OK, grabs your attention, and the premise is somewhat interesting (wife convicted of murdering husband, convicted, but he's actually alive, wife breaks out...).

But... it quickly goes downhill. Predictable, boring, hard to believe at times... this is one of those flicks that would go straight to video if it didn't have stars attached..

You can tell Tommy Lee Jones is just going through the motions - if you look closely at the end you can tell even he thinks the script is terrible!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: A forgettable thriller
Review: Double Jeopardy isn't particularly bad or good, it's just kind of there. While watching it I kept wanting to reach for the remote to see if anything else was on ... and then remembered that I'd actually rented it.

The movie wants to be "The Fugative" or any the other "man/woman wrongly accussed" flicks, but it can't live up to the real thrills that "The Fugative" had, and Ashley Judd simply can't hold a movie like Harrison Ford. Tommy Lee Jones is competent, but not nearly as compelling as he was in that earlier movie.

The plot ranges from tolerable to utterly implausible, combines with the lackluster acting to create a movie destined to be show again and again at 3 p.m. on Sunday afternoons on the "Million Dollar Movie".

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Wheel Of Misfortune
Review: Elizabeth Parsons (Ashley Judd) is a happy woman. She has a handsome husband, who's popular with the local community, a son, Matty, she treasures, a beautiful seaside home, and a friend, Angie, who her son loves. This is a woman who you quickly feel has it all. Just as quickly, something goes terribly wrong. Her husband, Nick (Bruce Greenwood), surprises Liz by showing her a large sailboat and suggests that they take it out for a spin before he buys it for her. We next see Liz happy at the helm of this boat and all seems idyllic.

What happens next is not so idyllic. Liz, who has been drinking, wakes up to find her robe, the bed, the floor, and just about anywhere you can look covered with blood. There are blood trails, bloody handprints, bloody footprints, leading out of the cabin, up the stairs, and over the side of the boat, now shrouded in fog. Liz looks down at the deck, sees a bloody knife and makes her first apparent mistake; she picks it up. Just as she does so, a Coast Guard cutter pulls up and compels her to put the knife down.

A few scenes later, with no sign of Nick's body, Liz finds herself under arrest and also finds a healthy dose of evidence that she did the deed. Without much ado, Liz is convicted and sent to prison. She asks her friend, Angie (Annabeth Gish) to adopt Matty because she knows Matty loves Angie. This accomplished, Liz sees Angie and Matty for a visit or two when suddenly Angie stops bringing Matty to the prison. When Liz calls Angie, she finds the number disconnected.

So far, so good. However, now the contrivances kick in. Without so much as a disguised voice, Liz calls the school district where Angie works pretending to be Angie verifying the address of "her" severance checks. From this call, Liz discovers Angie has moved to San Francisco. So, Liz calls; Angie answers; a heated discussion follows. Finally, Liz gets to speak to Matty. While talking, the apartment door open and who walks in but Nick, presumed dead. Matty says "Daddy!" and suddenly, Liz realizes she's been set up.

Apparently, she tells all of this to two inmates who have taken Liz under their wing even though there's no compelling reason for them to do so. Roma Maffia and Davenia McFadden play the inmates, respectively Margaret Skolowski and Evelyn Lake. Skolowski, a convicted murderer who happened to be an attorney, tells Liz that she can actually kill her husband since she's already been convicted of murdering him anyway, a provision of the Constitution's Fifth Amendment.

Now, for those of you who've read my earlier review of The Negotiator, some of what follows may sound familiar. All of this action to this point has taken place in the span of a half-hour; notice, nowhere have I mentioned the character played by Tommy Lee Jones. That character is Travis Lehman, her parole officer who is portrayed as a no nonsense guy who doesn't give second chances.

What follows from here to the end is a film I couldn't help compare with 1993's The Fugitive. Lehman pursues Liz across Washington State, Colorado, and New Orleans, as she herself follows the trail of her missing son and the husband who framed her.

This film had the potential to be a great thriller and one reason it got even two stars was for a marvelous Hitchcockian sequence in a New Orleans cemetary that was actually pulled off by director Bruce Beresford. The climatic scene was near-perfect as well. What falters is the overly contrived script by David Weisberg and Douglas S. Cook, who were responsible for The Rock, where they did a much better job. Weisberg and Cook sets up situations and then don't follow their own rules. So, instead of a taut thriller where you wonder how our heroine is going to accomplish her tasks, the whole thing comes off as kind of lethargic.

Jones gives a journeyman performance as Lehman, the parole officer who comes to realize that he's pursuing an innocent woman. Judd is excellent and does everything that's asked of her, although at times, she seemed a bit subdued. Bruce Greenwood imbued Nick with a kind of charm you could almost love if you didn't know what he's done to his wife.

I love mysteries; I wanted to highly recommend this film, but in the end, I can't. Double Jeopardy may be an OK way to spend a rainy afternoon, to view at a discount movie house, or to rival a TV-movie, but as a top-notch thriller, it doesn't make the grade.

[Originally written 25 September 1999]

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: A thriller that's not very thrilling.
Review: This is an enjoyable movie, especially if you like Ashley Judd. Unfortunately, it was billed as a thriller, but there is actually very little suspense. The storyline was too predicatable for that. As the viewer, I could easily figure out what would happen next. This ruins any chance for developing any serious amount of suspense. This is where the movie falls flat.

Other than that, I enjoyed watching it. The characters were engaging and fun to watch. The storyline itself is interesting (although, I think they could have done a lot more with the premise). The climax is satisfying aside from a few minor details...

If you like Ashley Judd, you'll probably like this film. Just don't go into it expecting an intense thriller. An enjoyable film that had the potential to be a lot better.


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