” when you get out of jail , you can kill him . ”
starring ashley judd , tommy lee jones , bruce greenwood .
rated r .
double jeopardy is a lurid , prepostrous thriller that’s also one of the year’s most enjoyable .
it’s an uncompromisingly brutal , cheerfully anarchic , hyperactive actioner that has a mission and never diverts from it .
there is not a moment here when the events on screen don’t have a direct bearing on the plot ; once the film gets going it never stops .
it has been branded as the female version of the fugitive and that’s probably a correct assessment of the plot , but the film itself has little in common with the 1993 andrew davis/harrison ford collaboration besides the presence of star tommy lee jones .
not even bothering with character introduction , director bruce beresford floors the gas pedal from the get-go and never finds the brake .
we meet , rather hastily , libby and nick parsons ( ashley judd and bruce greenwood , respectively ) a seemingly happy married couple , with a son matty , age 4 . they go out on a sailboat one night , and after a period of some rockin’ sex , they go to sleep .
libby hears a strange noise , wakes up and discovers that she is covered with blood .
she follows a red trail to the upper deck , where she finds a knife and , out of astonishment , picks it up .
at that convenient moment , the coast guard shows up and libby is arrested .
her lawyer , a friend , puts up a defense in court , but though we know she is innocent , the evidence against her is too compelling .
her friend adopts her son and she goes to prison .
once in prison , she makes a phone call to her friend .
her friend gives her son the phone .
nick walks in the room .
little matty screams ” daddy ! ”
the phone goes dead .
libby realizes that the man she is imprisoned for killing isn’t even dead .
she gets some advice from a prisoner/former lawyer , who tells her that since the state already convicted her of killing her husband , they can’t convict her of the same crime again , meaning that when she gets paroled she can kill him and they can’t touch her .
after a weirdly short amount of time , she gets out of parole .
she is sent to live at a house with other recent parolees , under the command of parole officer travis lehman ( tommy lee jones ) .
she sets out on a mission to find her husband and get her son back , which turns out to be much more difficult than anticipated .
she winds up tracking him all the way to new orleans where she finds out that he has long killed his girlfriend and her son’s ” adopter ” .
double jeopardy is based on an assumption that is legally false .
the law stating that nobody can be convicted twice for the same crime assumes that it is the same crime : same time , same place , same circumstances .
it’s not like it matters .
this is a rollickingly good thriller ; intense , exciting , fast and furious .
it’s silly alright , but this is the kind of film you just don’t question .
in some films , plausibility is everything .
double jeopardy , however , is not concerned with making sense : its sole purpose is to entertain , and it does .
judd helps the film tremendously in a difficult role .
this is her breakout box-office performance , and she is terrific .
she brings some emotion to what could have been a one-dimensional role , giving the movie a little soul to go along with its effective chase scenes and action set pieces .
tommy lee jones basically just reprises the role for which he won an oscar in the fugitive , but the movie makes good use of his stone-faced wit .
thankfully , too , double jeopardy refrains from developing a romance between libby and travis ; a subplot which doubtlessly would have interfered with the film’s story .
this is one of those movies where cops are the bad guys , and i took a sort of sick pleasure in that .
the sheer anarchy of the proceedings was nothing short of wonderful , as ashley judd kicks the crap out of every authority figure in the book .
after all the idealistic hollywood features featuring hero cops , deft fbi agents and the virtues of the american legal system , it’s great to see a movie that doesn’t so much demonstrate their fallacy as it delights in their failure .
double jeopardy is really good , but it isn’t the kind of good that is remembered or recognized with awards .
it’s one of those movies better viewed with the brain turned off , otherwise , your brain will be busy ruining your experience .
this is a thriller that isn’t concerned with being smart or plausible .
instead it diverts all attention to the action , which , this year , is second to none .