High Crimes

REVIEW
Hot shot attorney Judd is shocked when her seemingly perfect husband is accused of war crimes. She enlists the aid of alcoholic has-been Freeman to help her defend him in military court. Slick but hollow, predictable and protracted, High Crimes is a weak variation (read: rip-off) of both Jagged Edge and Music Box. The military's culpability in the crime (a My Lai-like village massacre) is never explored, it's just a plot device, and the guilty party is merely a lone psycho, and a boring, clichéd one at that. The revelation of the killer is especially tired, paving the way for a snoozer of a "climax." Judd and Freeman are fine in slumming mode, but the biggest crime here is the waste of director Franklin, who, based on the evidence of One False Move and Devil in a Blue Dress, is capable of so much more.