jeopardy

Double Jeopardy
Film poster
Directed by	Bruce Beresford
Produced by	Leonard Goldberg
Written by	David Weisberg Douglas Cook
Starring	Tommy Lee Jones Ashley Judd Bruce Greenwood
Music by	Normand Corbeil
Cinematography	Peter James
Editing by	Mark Warner
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	September 24, 1999
Running time	105 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$70 million

Double Jeopardy is a thriller film made in 1999, directed by Bruce Beresford and starring Tommy Lee Jones and Ashley Judd, about a woman who is framed for the murder of her husband.

Plot

Nick Parsons (Bruce Greenwood) and his wife Elizabeth, known as Libby, (Ashley Judd), wealthy residents of Whidbey Island, borrow a friend's yacht and set off sailing for the weekend. After becoming drunk Libby falls asleep and wakes up to find her husband missing and blood all over her hands, clothes, and the boat's floors. A Coast Guard vessel appears and Libby is spotted holding a bloody knife she found lying on the deck. She is apprehended, tried, and convicted for the murder of her husband.

Libby asks her best friend, Angela Green (Annabeth Gish), to look after her son Matty (Benjamin Weir) for the duration of her prison sentence. While talking with Matty during a phone call from prison, Libby hears him exclaim "Daddy!" right before the line goes dead. Libby realizes that Nick could still be alive and living with their son and attempts to get some investigative help. Distraught by the futility of these attempts, she is consoled by a fellow inmate who suggests that she serve her sentence and wait for parole, upon which time she could track down and kill Nick without consequences due to the legal doctrine of double jeopardy.

Libby is paroled after six years and begins searching for Nick and Matty while living in a halfway house under the supervision of Travis Lehman (Tommy Lee Jones), a parole officer. Libby violates her curfew and is caught breaking into a building to try and get Angela's records but manages to escape from Travis and continue her search. Recognizing an art work in a newspaper photo and tracing it through a dealer's database leads her to New Orleans, where she finds Nick living under an assumed name. Libby confronts him during a party at his hotel and demands he return Matty to her in exchange for her silence about his real identity.

Nick agrees to bring Matty to a meeting in a cemetery. However, Nick uses a decoy boy to distract Libby, knock her unconscious and lock her in a mausoleum. Libby wakes up and manages to escape.

Meanwhile, Travis has become suspicious of Nick's death and begins to believe Libby. The two team up to try and send Nick to prison and argue with him in his office. In the ensuing melee, Nick shoots Travis but is shot and killed by Libby. Travis promises to help Libby get fully pardoned, as he now has evidence that proves her innocence. Libby and Travis then travel to Matty's boarding school and mother and son are reunited.

Cast

• Tommy Lee Jones - Travis Lehman
• Ashley Judd - Elizabeth "Libby" Parsons
• Bruce Greenwood - Nicholas "Nick" Parsons / Jonathan Devereaux
• Benjamin Weir - Matty Parsons age 4
• Jay Brazeau - Bobby Long
• John MacLaren - Rudy
• Ed Evanko - Warre
• Annabeth Gish - Angela "Angie" Green

DVD release

Double Jeopardy was released on DVD by Paramount on 2/22/2000. The DVD included a behind-the-scenes featurette and its original Theatrical Trailer. It is presented in its original 2.35:1 widescreen format.

Reception

The film received mixed reviews. It is rated 26% on Rotten Tomatoes as its "consensus" states "A talented cast fails to save this unremarkable thriller."^[1] Roger Ebert gives the film two and half stars out of four, indicating a lukewarm reception.^[2]

However, some critics reacted to this film with positive reviews, with Leonard Maltin giving the film 3 out of 4 stars and calling it "slick entertainment". Mick LaSalle from the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that the film is a "well-acted diversion, directed by Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy) with an intelligent grasp of the moment-to-moment emotion".^[3] For her performance in Double Jeopardy, Ashley Judd won the 2000 Favorite Actress of Blockbuster Entertainment Award.^[4]

Box office

The film was a huge box office success, grossing $116 million domestically and $61 million overseas.^[5]

Legal inaccuracies

Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz criticized the movie for misrepresenting the legal doctrine of double jeopardy, a constitutional right in the United States granted by the Fifth Amendment.^[6]. This particular legal doctrine would not apply to the events portrayed in the film, as it only prevents someone from being put under trial for the same set of facts twice. Regarding the movie, the first (fake) killing and the second (real) one would constituite two difference crimes. Therefore, double jeopardy does not apply to them.

A character also makes an error concerning the method of capital punishment in Louisiana at the time.

References

External links

• Double Jeopardy at the Internet Movie Database
• Movie stills
• Straight Dope article on Double Jeopardy, including discussion of this film