Review of Double Jeopardy (1999) by Aidan S — 08 Jul 2014

Movies with completely absurd premises only need great conviction in their stories to sell it to audiences, and conviction is one thing that "Double Jeopardy" has in spades. It''s built very shakily on the premise that if you're convicted of killing someone who in reality is still alive, you can kill them in broad daylight in a crowd of people with absolutely no consequences.

Now that may or may not be factual, but since it has all the makings of a great Hollywood film, someone gave the green light to this screenplay that is far short of greatness. It's full of preposterous gaps in logic and red herrings galore only designed to keep the film on course to its underwhelming and unbelievable conclusion. There's no real satisfaction in how the film wraps up, and because it's so poorly constructed, there's not even any satisfaction in a key scene where Bruce Greenwood comes face to face with his wife again after so many years.

The whole thing feels like an Ashley Judd movie, and while there might have been a point in history where that may have been a compliment, but it isn't anymore. She looks great, but her performance here is too low-key to be effective. She comes off as a wounded puppy dog, even when she's supposed to be a raging mass of estrogen. She's a major reason that "Double Jeopardy" is so unsatisfying, and the screenwriters share the blame with her. This should have been a turbo charged thriller but instead it just lies here.