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Though the script is implausible, strong performances make High Crimes an engaging thriller about an attorney's fight to prove her husband's innocence.
By PHILIP BOOTH, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published April 4, 2002
In the movies, it's incredibly easy to have it all. Such is the case with Claire Kubik (Ashley Judd), a pretty, vivacious young attorney, casually pushing through the glass ceiling at a ritzy San Francisco law firm and coming off as a natural during a television interview following another triumph in court.
Claire works hard but still has time for a little slumming at a blue-collar bar, where she plays pool with her handsome artist husband, Tom (James Caviezel). Then it's off to an upscale restaurant and a romantic stroll through town: Here's a vision of a San Francisco, decorated for Christmas, that's as glittery and lush and inviting as New York City, circa Woody Allen, pre-Sept. 11.
Most evenings, the happy couple at the center of High Crimes would return to their sprawling hillside digs in Marin County, perhaps for a little romance and another attempt at conceiving a child. That routine, and their lives, are thrown into disarray when Tom is suddenly arrested by the FBI and charged with atrocities committed a dozen or so years earlier, while he was serving in the Marines in El Salvador.
High Crimes, directed by Carl Franklin (One False Move) from a screenplay based on Joseph Finder's novel, tackles a subject not unfamiliar in film and fiction: What happens when one discovers that a significant other may be hiding behind a false identity?
Claire, for her part, is puzzled and troubled at first when her husband is locked up in a military prison (initially on secret charges), ordered to face a tribunal and revealed to have been using an assumed name. The prosecutor is the tough, experienced Maj. Waldron (Michael Gaston), unaccustomed to losing and unafraid to take advantage of a system that seems to favor his side. The defender is fresh-faced, inexperienced Lt. Embry (Adam Scott), yet to win his first case.
Several twists later, Claire is convinced of her spouse's innocence and determined to fight for his release, whatever the consequences to her career, and forget the real-life military protocol. For extra help, she tracks down former ace military attorney Charles Grimes (Morgan Freeman).
Grimes' life is, uh, rather grimy: He's living in a rundown office-house combo, hanging out with hookers and trying to stay away from booze. In other words, a quirky grounded legal eagle ready to fly again.
The match is reasonably inspired: The two co-stars of 1997's Kiss the Girls have an easygoing chemistry. Judd makes a likable, charismatic action heroine, brainy, brawny and glamorous.
Their performances, and those of Caviezel (Angel Eyes), Scott, Gaston and the irrepressible Amanda Peet (The Whole Nine Yards), as Claire's wayward, flirtatious little sister, help compensate for an overlong script that's packed with implausible circumstances and coincidences. There's nothing like a mysteriously appearing and disappearing foreigner (Emilio Rivera) to keep the narrative moving forward.
Grade: B
Director: Carl Franklin
Cast: Ashley Judd, Morgan Freeman, James Caviezel, Amanda Peet
Screenplay: Yuri Zeltser and Cary Bickley (based on the Joseph Finder novel)
Rating: PG-13; graphic violence; profanity; sexual situations
Running time: 125 minutes