High Crimes Details

A mish-mash of characters and situations from several superior courtroom dramas, Carl Franklin's military-themed legal thriller squanders its quality cast on the most formulaic of scripts. Ashley Judd plays a successful attorney whose life is thrown into chaos when her husband (Jim Caviezel) is exposed as a former soldier accused of the murder of eight civilians during the civil war in El Salvador. Morgan Freeman — one of the finest actors around — is thoroughly wasted as the alcoholic lawyer who educates Judd in the peculiarities of military law. The stars manage to re-create the easy chemistry of their first pairing, in Kiss the Girls, but director Carl Franklin, once responsible for the taut film noir One False Move, never gets a firm grip on this TV-movie-standard script, which trundles along without ever reaching the dramatic peaks one would expect. Worst of all, the key ingredients of any courtroom drama — unexpected revelations and reversals — are very obviously signposted so the outcome utterly lacks suspense.

When indie directors dip into the mainstream, sooner or later they just go with the flow. Case in point: Carl Franklin,... read more on Time Out