6.4 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 3.1 |
A brutal murder is committed in the Florida Everglades. Eight years later, a principled Harvard law professor tries to save the convicted man on Death Row who swears he's innocent of that crime. For the small-town detective who investigated the killing, however, there's no question he caught the right man.
Starring: Sean Connery, Laurence Fishburne, Kate Capshaw, Blair Underwood, Ed HarrisCrime | 100% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Mystery | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
French: Dolby Digital 2.0
German: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
Portuguese: Dolby Digital Mono
Spanish=Castillian
English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German SDH, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
Just Cause is a fountain of wasted opportunities. Start with the talented cast, anchored by Sean Connery (Sean Connery!) and including such usually reliable stalwarts as Laurence Fishburne, Blair Underwood and a bevy of fine character actors filling out the small parts, which is usually the sign of a first-class project: Ruby Dee, Lynne Thigpen, Ned Beatty, Daniel J. Travanti, Kevin McCarthy, Hope Lange (her last film) and Ed Harris, who plays a memorable psychopath. (Scarlett Johannson, all of ten at the time, played Connery's daughter.) Then there's the ripely atmospheric Florida locale, which includes the swamps of Collier County, where you can almost feel the heat and humidity; Connery's character, a Harvard law professor, looks appropriately out of place there, which is just how he's supposed to feel. Then you have the weighty moral issues raised by the death penalty, which, by the end of the film, turn out to be no more than a pretext for another psycho-killer tale hanging on improbabilites each one slimmer than the last. The director of this misfire was Arne Glimcher, a big-time art dealer who dabbled in producing and directing feature films for about ten years at the end of the last century; his best achievement as a producer was Gorillas in the Mist and as a director was the little-seen Mambo Kings. But Glimcher shouldn't take all the blame, because Just Cause is a largely faithful adaptation of the novel of the same name by John Katzenbach, son of a former U.S. Attorney General and author of the novel Hart's War, which became the film of the same name. The screenwriters, Jeb Stuart (The Fugitive) and Peter Stone (Charade), should have known better than to leave some of Katzenbach's more far-fetched gimmicks intact. He may have been able to get away with them on the page, but on the screen they're so wildly improbable that the suspension of disbelief collapses with a thud. For the sake of first-time viewers, this review will be spoiler-free, with one exception for which I'll give advance notice, but you have been warned.
Whatever issues one may have with the film, there are no significant problems with Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray, which shows off the anamorphic Panavision photography of Hungarian cinematographer Lajos Koltai (Malèna ). Florida is often depicted in pastels, but the Florida of Just Cause appears in deep, velvety earth tones that accentuate the atmosphere of intense humidity and long-simmering emotions, most of them dangerous. By contrast, the prison that holds Sullivan and Bobby Lee is depicted in cold and unnatural colors (especially the orange jump suits), and the lighting is harsh and artificial. Whatever the environment, the image is finely detailed, with a visible but minute and natural grain structure throughout, and the black levels are well-maintained, which is essential for the critical night scenes in the film's third act. No sharpness appears to have been added artificially, and there's no indication that any detail has been stripped by filtering. The absence of any features, while unfortunate from a consumer's point of view, ensures that the 102-minute film fits easily onto a BD-25.
The most noticeable surround activity on Just Cause's DTS-HD MA 5.1 occurs during its swamp sequences, where the listening room comes alive with the slightly ominous sounds of nature (mostly birds, but other wildlife as well) coming from unseen points all around. Another scene, not in the swamp, uses the buzzing of flies to similar effect. The closest thing the film has to an action sequence is an automobile pursuit near the end, which registers a few solid impacts with deep bass extension; the same feature accompanies several "jump" effects and slamming doors that ring soundly through the viewing room. Overall, though, the mix for Just Cause is a restrained affair that supports the dialogue-driven story. The dialogue itself is always clear, which is no small achievement when Ed Harris's Blair Sullivan character begins bellowing at top volume. The score by the ever-busy James Newton Howard is well presented.
The Blu-ray contains no extras.
I have no objection when pulpy thrillers enter serious territory. When such efforts are done well, they demonstrate that the filmmakers have higher aspirations and the result can transcend the limits of genre. The prime example is The Silence of the Lambs, in which the hunt for a serial killer assumed mythic proportions, because it became the essence of a young FBI agent's spiritual journey. Other films have exceeded their roots by giving serious consideration to the cost exacted from the officials tasked with investigating such crimes; notable examples include Tightrope, Manhunter, Helen Mirren's Prime Suspect series and Copycat. But when a serious issue like the death penalty is used as nothing more than decor for a routine murder mystery, and then the murder mystery isn't even well executed, it's an offense against the seriousness of the issue and an insult to the craftsmanship of film. Either one alone would be objectionable. The combination, for profit, is despicable. Just Cause can be enjoyed during the scenes of Connery's Armstrong investigating, but be prepared to have the whole affair turn sour near the end. My suggestion is to rent.
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