Review of Double Jeopardy (1999) by Jennifer S — 06 Feb 2011

Rarely have I seen a movie that's supposed to take place in real life (as opposed to, say, Hogwarts, where we can suspend our disbelief and believe in magic) so utterly and completely unrealistic. Let's compile the bizarre leaps of faith this movie asks us to take in bullet form:

*A woman wakes up covered in her husband's blood, is instantly convicted of his murder. When she insists she is innocent in court and suggests that maybe someone else committed the murder, the prosecutor mocks her and scoffs "Maybe aliens killed your husband!". Umm...or maybe someone else ACTUALLY DID kill him? Apparently, the defense and jury don't consider this a viable possibility.

*The woman is sent to prison. A prison where women are allowed to wear jeans, bake birthday cakes for each other, and cut each other's hair in a nice, roomy prison salon. Yeah, right.

*The woman is let out on parole after just 6 years in prison. 6 years!? She was charged with first degree murder, right?

*She goes to live in a halfway house that looks more like a junkie squat and is headed by a former alcoholic law professor. Uh-huh.

*She escapes the halfway house and goes on the lam to find her husband (who faked his death and framed her) so that she can actually kill him. She knows she will get away scot free because of the whole "double jeopardy" thing where you can't be convicted of the same crime twice. Um...ok. But if you violate parole, cause harm to your parole officer, and then travel across the country to explicitly threaten and murder your husband (fo reals this time), I'm pretty sure they'll find a way to charge you with something.

*Before people shoot each other, they give long lectures to the people they're about to shoot. Yeah right! Why would anyone do this!? It just gives your enemy a chance to get away!

*By the end of the movie, the parole officer believes the woman and after she doffs hubby, tells her he's going to recommend a full pardon. Uh-huh. This would TOTES HAPPEN in real life.

Ok, and not only is Double Jeopardy full of BS on many, many counts, the acting and script are terrible. Tommy Lee Jones, you are better than this.