neumu [ cinematronic ]




	High Crimes
	Carl Franklin Ashley Judd, Morgan Freeman, Jim Caviezel, Amanda Peet, Bruce Davison 2002		They teamed for the uneven murder mystery/thriller "Kiss the Girls." Now, Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman are back together for another one. They and co-star Jim Caviezel manage to keep you interested for three-quarters of "High Crimes" before the obvious or implausible plot twists strangle the whole shebang. Judd is Claire, a San Francisco lawyer on the rise whose happy marriage is rent asunder when her husband (Caviezel) is arrested, hauled before a military tribunal and accused of war crimes. Claire decides to defend him in court even when she learns that he may have married her under an assumed identity. Since she knows little about military law, she turns to former army attorney Charles Grimes (Freeman), who is battling a few demons of his own. You get trumped up courtroom sequences, flashbacks from a covert operation in Central America, Claire's slacker sexpot sister (Amanda Peet) — and a gratuitous "surprise" climax. With Bruce Davison as a callous army bigwig.