High Crimes - Dvd [2002]

Just about acceptable as an in-flight movie, High Crimes is a tad weak for the big-screen, though its amiable stars and typical plotting offer the comforts of familiarity for home viewing. Ashley Judd plays a high-end lawyer who specialises in brilliant defence of the guilty, while Morgan Freeman is a broken-down ex-drunk who specialises in court martials ("military justice is to justice what military music is to music"). When Judd's handyman husband (Jim Caviezel) is arrested by the FBI and indicted for a massacre carried out in El Salvador while he was serving as a marine, Judd gets over the fact that he has concealed his entire past and even his real name and rallies to fight the case, even if it means going up against the shadowy masters of a conspiracy to cover up what actually happened.

The movie rattles through all the clichés: bugs in phones; cars that cruise ominously by; staged road accidents; night-time intrusions; mystery men who hand out clues in the supermarket; dubious polygraph results; appearing and disappearing witnesses; smugly brutal generals, brilliantly made points of law; fights in the interview room; multiple revelations; a media circus and a final tussle in a darkened, deserted house. Judd, one of the best screen actresses of her generation, needs to pick better scripts since her commitment to rubbish only makes her look silly, but Freeman has done enough of these walk-through parts to get by on charisma and the odd smart line.

On the DVD: High Crimes on disc comes with a gaggle of featurettes: a chat with the author of the original novel, Joseph Finder, some making-of puffery about staging stunts and the working relationship of the stars, and interesting little bits with the technical advisors about the court martial system and how to beat a polygraph. Franklin contributes a commentary track with a lot of enthusiasm, which is a little more pleased with the end product than most viewers will be. --Kim Newman