A film you only watch once, for once you know the outcome, it’s not necessary to sit through all that palaver and all those red herrings, despite the excellent performances and the Prince of Darkness. Your eyes are on the screen though. Harrison Ford doesn’t say “my wife!!” enough times for my liking.

A film you only watch once, for once you know the outcome, it’s not necessary to sit through all that palaver and all those red herrings, despite the excellent performances and the Prince of Darkness. Your eyes are on the screen though. Harrison Ford doesn’t say “my wife!!” enough times for my liking.

Williams’ score goes extremely and unnecessarily hard.

Williams’ score goes extremely and unnecessarily hard.

John Spencer AND Bradley Whitford???? My West Wing loving heart can't take this.

A slow burn of a legal thriller that I thoroughly enjoyed until it lost the plot in the last ten minutes. With twenty minutes left in the film Sabich has had his case dismissed and is released of all suspicion for Carolyn's murder. After that the film continues to build on the grappling debate over whether he did it or not. His lawyer and his close friend, they don't have any idea and neither does the audience. And he finds the damn murder weapon and I still couldn't make up my mind.

And instead of ending the film on a cliffhanger and leaving it up to the audience to grapple over what his decision to carefully wash his lover's blood off the weapon meant, we're met with a plot twist completely out of left field. Look, I love a plot twist, I reviewed Primal Fear not that long ago so it would be wrong of me to claim that I don't love a plot twist in the last ten minutes. However, this throws out a twist that we had no reason to even suspect! Maybe I need to do a rewatch because I didn't pick up on any indication that the wife was someone we even needed to consider! It might have partially been the questionably delivered monologue from Bonnie Bedelia, but it felt so stupid coming from a film that had so beautifully built the audience into being torn over Rusty's involvement.

Ford and Julia are so so so great in this that it really sucks that it ended on such a flat and underwhelming note.

and I was so convinced that Rusty did it and I never like being wrong lol.

John Spencer AND Bradley Whitford???? My West Wing loving heart can't take this.

A slow burn of a legal thriller that I thoroughly enjoyed until it lost the plot in the last ten minutes. With twenty minutes left in the film Sabich has had his case dismissed and is released of all suspicion for Carolyn's murder. After that the film continues to build on the grappling debate over whether he did it or not. His lawyer and his close friend, they don't have any idea and neither does the audience. And he finds the damn murder weapon and I still couldn't make up my mind.

And instead of ending the film on a cliffhanger and leaving it up to the audience to grapple over what his decision to carefully wash his lover's blood off the weapon meant, we're met with a plot twist completely out of left field. Look, I love a plot twist, I reviewed Primal Fear not that long ago so it would be wrong of me to claim that I don't love a plot twist in the last ten minutes. However, this throws out a twist that we had no reason to even suspect! Maybe I need to do a rewatch because I didn't pick up on any indication that the wife was someone we even needed to consider! It might have partially been the questionably delivered monologue from Bonnie Bedelia, but it felt so stupid coming from a film that had so beautifully built the audience into being torn over Rusty's involvement.

Ford and Julia are so so so great in this that it really sucks that it ended on such a flat and underwhelming note.

and I was so convinced that Rusty did it and I never like being wrong lol.

Man I love a good court room drama!

Man I love a good court room drama!

this movie does a good enough job of keeping the mystery going for as long as possible knowing full well that’s what people will find interesting about it. harrison ford is sneaky good in this starting out as a well respected lawyer who’s trying his best to solve the case of a friend to a potential suspect who has done some shady things.

the plot a vs plot b interactions were also rather entertaining like he’s being tried for murder and we have to determine if he did it or even if so what’s going on with this bribery charge, where does it fit in. this constant run around of what’s important and who’s actually on the good side was really entertaining and comes to ahead near the end very nicely.

now i’m not saying i agree with the murder but i can understand why the killer did what they did. but that is also a massive police oversight to have all of the evidence pointing to one person but not even think to check hard enough into their life to find someone else with similar access and understanding who may have had a motive. not a bad one to just throw on and serves a role as a courtroom procedural

this movie does a good enough job of keeping the mystery going for as long as possible knowing full well that’s what people will find interesting about it. harrison ford is sneaky good in this starting out as a well respected lawyer who’s trying his best to solve the case of a friend to a potential suspect who has done some shady things.

the plot a vs plot b interactions were also rather entertaining like he’s being tried for murder and we have to determine if he did it or even if so what’s going on with this bribery charge, where does it fit in. this constant run around of what’s important and who’s actually on the good side was really entertaining and comes to ahead near the end very nicely.

now i’m not saying i agree with the murder but i can understand why the killer did what they did. but that is also a massive police oversight to have all of the evidence pointing to one person but not even think to check hard enough into their life to find someone else with similar access and understanding who may have had a motive. not a bad one to just throw on and serves a role as a courtroom procedural