The only thing I hate more than watching a bad movie once is watching it twice.
And paying for it.
Both times.
Unfortunately, since I can’t seem to keep the various drop-off times of my several video purveyors straight, I had the privilege of watching a little train wreck called Double Jeopardy not once, but two excruciating times. Well, one and one-quarter times—fifteen minutes into the first screening during a particularly ludicrous trial scene, my companion and I looked at each other in horror, hit “eject,” and popped in Hard Eight which I can (and do, elsewhere) heartily recommend.
So now I’m thinking: “Idiot! You’ve just rented the worst movie since Ishtar… again! Why don’t you just pull up a few “Earn Big Money From Your Own Home!” e-mails in your bulk mail inbox, enter your credit card number and call it a day?”
Then I thought, “Waaaaaait a minute. I can earn money from my own home… on Epinions!” So I steeled myself for (ulp!) screening #2. This time, though, I did five loads of laundry, got out the ironing board and fired up the Black & Decker Light ‘n’ Easy first. If I was going to waste an hour and a half of my life watching Ashley Judd wade through the worst dialogue of her career, I was going to walk away with unwrinkled shirts, at the very least.
Let me say as an aside that I am an enormous fan of both Judd and her co-star, Tommy Lee Jones. I know he’s got a ranch in Texas to maintain and that she can’t keep herself in fancy panties doing brilliant works of art like Ruby in Paradise. (As a matter of fact, word has it Ms. Judd doesn’t fancy panties, period—but that’s another story.) So I go to see things like Kiss The Girls and for the most part, they’re fine.
Double Jeopardy, on the other hand, is anything but. But wait—let’s let the film speak for itself.
Part One: Wherein The Exposition Unfolds Along With My Sheets
FADE IN
EXTERIOR: SUN-DAPPLED BODY OF WATER
We eavesdrop on a cloying exchange between a sun-dappled Libby (ASHLEY JUDD) and her sun-dappled, ADORABLE MOPPET son (Benjamin Weir) as they fish off the sun-dappled pier of their Seattle island home.
ASHLEY JUDD
(pointing to lovely, wooden sailboat)
Do you know what that is, Matty?
The most beautiful boat on (sounds like) Wimpy Island
—the Morning Star. When you grow up, I’ll teach you how to sail.
It’s the best thing there is.
MATTY THE ADORABLE MOPPET
Is sailing better than fishing?
ASHLEY JUDD
Yup. But wait, kiddo. I don’t know if I want you to grow up.
What if you marry some beautiful girl and move away?
Who’ll go sailing with me then?
MATTY THE ADORABLE MOPPET
Daddy?
ASHLEY JUDD
(with an anticipatory wince at next line)
Not a chance.
(a) A bad business deal threatens the wealthy couple with complete bankruptcy.
(b) The couple is friends with a sexy, attractive, available single woman. We know they cannot be anything but friends because Angela (Annabeth Gish) is a grammar school teacher who dotes on their sonand so in no way should be taken as a possible threat to the couple’s marriage.
(c) In contrast to his earthy sailor-woman wife, Nick is a condescending, urbane spendthrift whose tastes in art run to very expensive Wassily Kandinsky originals and who loathes the outdoors—specifically sailing—but who nevertheless buys his wife this incredibly expensive sailboat for no discernible occasion even though he knows they are flat broke.
As I fluff the pillows, Nick and Libby wrap up some gratuitous boffing aboard the Morning Star. By the time the last pillow is on the bed, Nick has “disappeared” off the boat in a paint-by-numbers blood trail, the stoic Libby has been handcuffed (Actual Straight-faced Quote: “Not in front of my kid, huh?”), stamped guilty of murdering the unlucky Nick for his $2 million insurance policy and carted off to the pen.
What ever could happen next?
Part Two: Wherein Things Get Worse As I Sort My Socks & Underwear
Prison life is hard. For example, Libby is forced to stir a large vat of tapioca while actual Christmas muzak plays in the background to underscore the tragic irony of her situation. There are the usual issues a stunningly attractive, size-2 waif has to contend with in prison, like stirring really big vats of tapioca and not being able to wear a lot of makeup. But our girl is outdoorsy and earthy and knows how to handle herself. When two scary inmates come all the way up to the foot of Libby’s bunk bed and make a bet on how long “rich girl” will last before “offing herself,” she tells them to—get this—“go away.” Wow! I’m going to remember that trick in case I ever get sent to the pokey!
And then there is Libby’s personal life, which is of course in a shambles because she has, apparently, no friends at all anymore and no one to help her. No wait—Angela, who has adopted Matty at Libby’s request, carts in the kid for regular visits. But suddenly, the visits stop and Angela is unreachable. She discovers that—gasp!—Angela and Nick have been schtupping all along and that—gasp!—Nick is still alive!
Current inmate, former lawyer and fellow husband-whacker Margaret Skolowski (the always excellent Roma Maffia, who does what she can with some dreadful lines) coaches Libby to do her time, get out and get even. How? Because no one can be tried and convicted twice for the same crime (double jeopardy), Libby can walk up to her husband in the middle of Times Square and shoot him point blank in the face with complete impunity.
Um. Somehow, I have a hard time believing this, but frankly, this movie is already implausible on so many levels that suspending one more area of disbelief isn’t going to hurt too much.
Part Three: Wherein in the Name of Expediency, I Give Up on the Laundry and Give This Piece of Doody My Full Attention
Libby is released into the custody of Travis Lehman (Tommy Lee Jones), a former law professor who has fallen from grace and now runs a halfway house in Seattle. Jones does here what Jones does best—the tough-talkin’, upright harda** with a soft spot in his solar plexus for the righteous underdog. So when Libby busts out of the joint to search for her son, we know that eventually, after much cursing and carping over the myriad trials he’s enduring as he gives chase, he will come around to her and these two like-minded souls will become friends. (Not love interests, however, and for this small break with the tradition of pairing dewy maidens with girdled and toupéed grampas, Double Jeopardy gets one star.)
THE CHASE SEQUENCES DISCLAIMER: Extensive employment of my remote control’s fast-forward button leaves me unqualified to fairly judge the quality of (a) the various action sequences and (b) the many montages that show Ms. Judd in a state of reflection. From what I did view, I can reasonably put forth that the former were handled ably and will produce in the viewer an appropriate level of tension and that the latter were so ham-handed as to make me care not one whit about the former, the latter, or anything else contained in this movie.
Part Four: Wherein All Ends, But Not Necessarily Well (and Colleen Gets a Little Cranky)
The hunt for the evil Nick takes Libby and Travis (and anyone who’s still watching them) through Washington, Colorado and finally, New Orleans. Along the way, we’re subjected to a series of insulting plot turns and unhealthy quantities of hackneyed dialogue. It’s really too bad, because every once in a while, a good action sequence or clever plot device reminds one that this might have been a decent, little “B”-grade noir pic.
As it stands, Double Jeopardy is a monument to Wasted Potential, specifically, the waste that goes on in filmmaking today. In a way, I’m sorry to come down so hard on this film because it has its moments. The leads do a fine job with their awful dialogue. There are some good action sequences and clever, well-supported plot twists.
But in another way, I’m not. The bar is raised for a big budget picture. Stars who are paid exorbitant sums should provide superior performances. Expensive scripts should be engaging, true to their own worlds and virtually leak-free. I can forgive a plot hole or uneven story or a bad performance in a tiny independent picture without the means to address these issues. But a director with Bruce Beresford’s pedigree (Breaker Morant, Tender Mercies) should be ashamed of himself—or at the very least, worried about devaluing his own artistic currency. He’s capable of better than this—a movie barely qualified to serve as a distraction while folding one’s drawers.
As far as I'm concerned, there are only three things that could redeem my experience with this film:
(a) That somehow, someone in power would see my own or similar reactions to this film and maybe, just maybe, hold off instead of rushing into production another rotten contribution to the Hollywood trash heap
(b) That somehow, someone who was considering renting this movie would click on my review and be dissuaded
(b) That somehow, by some miracle, enough people who were considering renting this movie would click on my review to pay for my rental fees of Double Jeopardy.
At $7.48 and a penny a hit, I realize that's a tall order. But I have faith in my fellow Epinionators.
A lot more faith than I have in Hollywood, anyway.
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