9/26/99
Tommy Lee Jones as Travis Lehman, Ashley Judd as Libby Parsons, Bruce Greenwood as Nick Parsons, Annabeth Gish as Angela.
Double Jeopardy starts out very slowly, depicting an upper middle class family enjoying the fruits of their labor by throwing a party. Very little meaningful dialog takes place during this party, the same old business mixed with pleasure and a fund-raiser for a day-care. Next, the surprise sailboat gift for Libby from her husband Nick is the scene for the tragedy of the film, Libby wakes up covered with blood, and her husband is missing. If you have seen the previews for this film you already know the story.
Well, Libby gets arrested for the murder of her husband, and is sentenced to prison. Her friend, Angela, from the day-care is given her son. She visits prison with the son to see Libby quite often. Then one day the visits stop. Well to not prolong the agony, Libby learns that Nick is alive and living with Angela, Libby gets paroled, and searches for her child. With greater skill than any movie detective Libby follows Nick across the country. Here we are treated to a lengthy montage of pages from a National Geographic to fill the middle of this film. Without this the film would be 30 minutes long.
The acting in this film is very good, Tommy Lee Jones is only here for his name, if his character didn't exist, we wouldn't miss it. The story is lame and probably written by Mrs. Nussbaum's eighth grade class.The bottom line, this film is Double Predictable. Of course the ending is wrapped up with a very neat bow. It is an anti-male film. Some of the more vocal females in my audience applauded or loudly commented during the film to show their hatred of males.
I give it 2 out of 5 ball busters: