Double Jeopardy

Directed by Bruce Beresford

With Ashley Judd, Tommy Lee Jones, Bruce Greenwood, Annabeth Gish, and others

Christina says:

A romantic trip with their new sailboat turns into a nightmare for Libby Parsons (Ashley Judd). Her husband Nick (Bruce Greenwood) disappears and the boat and she are found covered in blood by the coast guard. Her husband’s company is bankrupt and she stands to collect 2 million dollars from his life insurance. Both facts don’t make her look good in court. The jury comes back with a guilty verdict. Libby entrusts her son Matty to the care of her best friend Angela (Annabeth Gish) and goes to prison. After a while Angela doesn’t bring Matty to visit his mother any more. Libby gets her new phone number, but Angela makes excuses and Libby hears Matty in the background calling for his father. Now Libby is convinced that her husband is still alive, and as soon as her parole comes through she sets out to find him and retrieve her son. To do so she has to violate her parole. Probation officer Travis Lehman (Tommy Lee Jones) is hard on her heels from Seattle to New Orleans.

DOUBLE JEOPARDY is a thriller with strong action movie traits. I’m not talking about spectacular stunts, but rather about plot holes, flat characters and wooden actors. Here DOUBLE JEOPARDY can compete with the best of them.

Director Bruce Beresford doesn’t waste much time with the introduction of the characters. Libby Parsons is a clichéd mother animal, her husband the charming but egotistical crook and probation officer Lehman is your typical I-ruined-my-life-but-if-I-can-do-this-right-I’ll-be-forgiven anti-hero.

Ashley Judd and Tommy Lee Jones listlessly act their way through the muddled plot. Passengers of a ferry don’t notice that a car falls off and the bad guy is too dumb to search his victim for guns. The beautiful pictures of the American Northwest aren’t enough to make up for that.

Could have been good if Beresford and scriptwriters Weisberg and Cook had brought a minimum of plausibility to Libby’s trial and the search for her dead husband. Interesting story gone to waste.

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Christina Gross

Last changes: 01/04/03