Rating summary

Movie		1.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		1.5

Reasonable Doubt Blu-ray Movie Review

Where's Alan Smithee when you really need him?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 17, 2014

If you’ve ever been in the gallery at a trial, or even participated in one as a witness or a juror, you probably know that jurisprudence rarely plays out in real life the way it does on television or in the movies. Attorneys, whether prosecutors or those working for the defense, tend to be as eloquently articulate as mass media lawyers, and there are usually long stretches of absolutely suffocating procedures and court minutiae that can act as a sort of institutional melatonin. But even memories of a lost week or two in any given trial probably can’t quite prepare you for the stultifying experience that is Reasonable Doubt, and the ironic thing about this all is that while the film makes some passing effort to pass itself off as one of those legal system centered thrillers a la John Grisham or Scott Turow, it’s really a throwback to dunderheaded mysteries of yore where a crazed madman targets a suburban family and the morally wounded husband and father figure has to figure out how to defend his kith and kin when his own psychological slate isn’t pristine. The fact that this bottom feeding effort attracted the likes of Samuel L. Jackson indicates either that the film looked at least somewhat more promising on paper or that Jackson is seriously in need of a paycheck. The fact that the film’s director Peter Howitt (Johnny English , perhaps providing an indication of the tonal disconnect this film features) didn’t go the usual “Alan Smithee” route in removing his name from Reasonable Doubt, choosing instead the odd but somehow endearing “Peter P. Croudins” may indicate something else entirely—that even Howitt became aware of what a stinker he had created and that even the vaunted Smithee name wouldn’t create enough cover for what he hoped was his continuing career.

Reasonable Doubt’s screenplay (by Peter A. Dowling, who gave us the similarly improbable Flightplan) starts out—well, reasonably enough, with an introduction to up and coming attorney Mitch Brockden (Dominic Cooper), a hotshot prosecutor making it in the Windy City while also providing for his wife and baby daughter in a tony suburb. Mitch has a bit too much to drink one night at a post-trial celebration, and ends up hitting a pedestrian on the way home. Panicked about what this may mean for his future, he at least has the presence of mind to place an anonymous 911 call about the accident. Suspicions soon fall upon an obviously mentally disturbed man named Clinton Davis (Samuel L. Jackson) when he’s found with the victim and an obsessive cop (Gloria Reuben) adds fuel to the fire with her suspicions that Davis may in fact be a serial killer responsible for several recent unsolved murders.

Mitch gets himself appointed to Clinton’s case and makes plans to actually get the guy off, at which point this movie just goes bat guano crazy, without any camp or unintended hilarity elements to make it all worthwhile. Clinton of course goes free and of course does turn out to be a serial killer, albeit one with a tortured past of his own which he is evidently working out by slicing and dicing his way through the general populace. Clinton is aware that Mitch is the real perpetrator of the original hit and run (you’re forgiven if you’ve forgotten by this time that this crime is how the convoluted tale actually got underway), and a rather turgid and absolutely predictable cat and mouse game ensues, with Mitch now aware that Clinton is a deranged murderer and Clinton aware that Mitch is an only conveniently repentant hit and run driver.

Screenwriter Dowling attempted to reinvent a previous formula genre utilized in films like Bunny Lake is Missing with Flightplan, proving that some previous formula genres should not be reinvented. It’s hard to say what exactly Dowling was attempting to come up with here, for the film so quickly devolves into a morass of ridiculousness that there’s simply a flaccid rote quality where there should be increasing tension. Dowling spills several key secrets too early in the film for his own good, and then piles on a series of supporting characters who have patently absurd backgrounds, making the entire enterprise increasingly difficult to tolerate.

Cooper spends most of the film looking like he’s passing an exceptionally large and troublesome kidney stone, while Jackson simply creeps through most of the film glaring intently at everything, as if absurdly wide eyeballs will offer some window into Clinton’s troubled soul. Sadly, there is no credible defense for a film this lackluster, and Reasonable Doubt is guilty of wasting an at least decent if far from innovative premise and an interesting cast.

Reasonable Doubt Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Reasonable Doubt is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1 (it's perhaps notable that Lionsgate is bringing out this Blu-ray when one of the film's co-producing entities was Entertainment One, perhaps indicating that not even Entertainment One wanted ancillary rights to this turkey). This high definition presentation is at least marginally better than the film itself, but it, too, is kind of lackluster, offering warmed over color and a surprisingly soft looking appearance quite a bit of the time. Once again color grading has been utilized rather ubiquitously (why is it that virtually every "gritty" crime thriller is bathed in tones of blue?). Fine detail is actually quite good in close-ups, though it tends to dissipate in some of the heavily color graded sequences. Contrast is dialed a bit low at times, including some of the interior shots.

Reasonable Doubt Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Reasonable Doubt's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix has some good immersion with regard to ambient environmental effects, but the film plays out largely in up close and personal dialogue sequences which don't offer a lot of opportunities for sonic wonderment. James Jandrisch's score, which utilizes some pulsing synth washes, also spreads through the surrounds at regular intervals.

Reasonable Doubt Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Behind the Scenes with Cast and Crew Interviews (1080p; 11:52) sadly contains no segments featuring Alan Smithee, er, Peter P. Croudins, but it does have some relatively interesting information about Winnipeg filling in for Chicago (even the locale is a pseudonym, evidently).


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 9:59). Some cynics may aver that they would have been better off to have left these ten or so minutes in and to have deleted the rest of the film.


• Interviews with Actors Samuel L. Jackson, Dominic Cooper and Gloria Reuben (1080p; 35:54) features footage culled from the same sessions that provides some of the interstitial material in the Behind the Scenes featurette (above). None of this trio seems overly embarrassed by appearing in the film. That's acting.


• Reasonable Doubt Trailer (1080p; 2:33)

Reasonable Doubt Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There's unfortunately no doubt about this movie: it's a bomb.