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High Crimes Review by Harry Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman are two of the most talented actors in Hollywood. I have no doubt that Ashley Judd will one day be nominated for an oscar, and Morgan Freeman has starred in many of my favorite movies of all time, from Driving Miss Daisy to Shawshank Redemption to Nurse Betty. That said, I went into High Crimes with high hopes. The opening of this movie was quite similar to the opening of Ashley Judd’s other crime thriller, Double Jeopardy. She is desperately in love with her husband, and they’re still having newlywed intercourse. I was surprised that she didn’t go topless for the short love scene at the start, seeing as that’s never bothered her before, but all disappointed males out there, blame Jim Caviezel. A devout Christian and husband, he refuses to do nude scenes with women. It’s because of him J-Lo kept her top on during the love scene in Angel Eyes. Well, he gets his for this deprivation, as he is arrested early in the film after it is revealed that he is wanted for a military crime. Apparently, he killed a bunch of innocent villagers in some South African country. As luck would have it, Ashley Judd is a lawyer, but not a military lawyer, and the military lawyer the military has assigned isn’t a good lawyer. It’s actually a lot more simple than I just explained. In any case, she decides to defend her husband (shocking) and enlists a recovering alcoholic/military lawyer/black person in Morgan Freeman to help her. Together they become Matlock and do the work of private detectives in clearing her husband’s name. Problem is, the military is really just full of jerks who ensure to screw them up at every turn, and we’re never really sure if Jim Caviezel is telling the truth, especially after its discovered he’s been trained to beat lie detector tests. (A gift that he swears he doesn’t abuse.) The good in this movie is substantial. For the first three quarters, I was quite entertained. because acting was great; I do love Ashley Judd, and I enjoy Morgan Freeman even more. Their chemistry on screen is quite likeable, because Freeman makes a convincing drunk, and while I’m really not sure what Amanda Peet’s purpose in this movie was, she added a little something else, which I think was just a sexy one-two punch. My main reservation is that I’d seen this all before in all the other military court dramas, but it was still entertaining. The movie falls apart at the end, however. Without giving anything away (I probably still will), it began with a terrible cop-out, but it didn’t even end there. Another little surprise was tacked on, but it played itself out stupidly and didn’t really fit the rest of the movie. Think Harrison Ford in What Lies Beneath, but with less setup. All of a sudden Ashley Judd gets all jittery and does something stupid, and the movie ends with Morgan Freeman sober and Ashley Judd single. It was one of the poorer endings I’d seen to a film, and it didn’t bode well for a movie that was already clichéd and predictable. Still, in all its predictability, the acting and filming was good enough for me to still reluctantly recommend this movie. And I’m still waiting for Ashley Judd to get that Oscar.
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