Double Jeopardy was only half as good as I’d hoped it would be, but twice as funny as I expected. Two things made this film pretty good, but one thing really hurt it. The first thing that made this picture so good was the concept itself. Libby Parsons, Ashley Judd’s character, is framed by her husband and her husband’s lover for his death so they can collect two million dollars in life insurance and start over under another name. This was easily the nicest, tightest frame I have ever seen in all my years of reading and watching crime fiction. Perry Mason himself couldn’t have gotten Libby Parsons off and since Libby’s attorney is no Perry Mason to prison she goes for a first-degree murder she didn’t commit. Once in prison, through a bad break for her supposedly late husband, Libby finds out he's still alive, but the only catch is no one will believe her except for the friends she’s made while in prison. One of these friends, a disbarred lawyer, points out to Libby that since she’s already been convicted once of killing her husband under the law she can’t be convicted for killing him a second time. She can shoot him in the middle of Times Square and no one can do anything about it. "Kind of gives you a warm, tingly feeling, doesn’t it?" adds the ex-lawyer with a wonderfully evil ‘cat who just swallowed the canary’ smile. So Libby does her time until she can fast-talk the parole board, with the coaching of her more experienced prison friends, into a parole. Once out she skips parole to find her husband and their son only her Parole Officer isn’t too thrilled with that so a la The Fugitive he pursues her and the chase is on. The next thing Double Jeopardy has going for it is the acting. Absolutely every single actor in this film, from the supporting cast to the main players does an absolutely dead on, bang up job. I did have the feeling that Tommy Lee Jones wasn’t quite putting his whole heart into his role, but even if he only used half his abilities Mr. Jones would still shine like a star gone nova. And the rest of the cast, especially Bruce Greenwood who plays Libby’s husband, were all at the top of their form. Whether he’s humiliating some poor smuck over his lack of knowledge of art in front of the guys girlfriend or attempting to murder his wife when she finally catches up to him Greenwood’s character radiates sheer sadism. The rest of the cast is spectacular as well especially Libby’s two prison friends, the bartender who warns Libby the police are looking for her and the Louisiana cop that constantly drags out the name of Tommy Lee Jones’ character into two syllables, "Ley Man"
Where Double Jeopardy fails, and fails badly, is that the script has more holes in it then the windows of an abandoned haunted house. For example, what made Libby’s husband so sure that Libby would leave custody of their son, along with the two million dollars of insurance money in trust for him, with her best friend who is also his lover? What would he have done for money if Libby had left their son, and the money, to someone else such as her parents? Another weak point has Libby handcuffed to a car on a ferryboat trying to escape by driving the car back and forth hoping to wreck it enough for her to escape. In the process she wrecks several other cars and even knocks one into the water…and no one notices! And finally, after such a big deal being made of Libby being able to kill her husband with impunity due to the double jeopardy provision of the Constitution the entire concept was pretty much ignored. Instead of hunting her husband for revenge the double jeopardy concept takes a backseat to Libby’s fanatical search for her son. Sad to say I doubt more then fifteen minutes at a time passed in the film without something implausible happening. Admittedly the script had a lot of humor; most of which Tommy Lee Jones delivered in his impeccable style, but the humor was enough to save such a poorly thought out script.
All in all a fair movie, but not as good as it could have been. It’s worth seeing, but I doubt anything about it will double your pleasure or double your fun.
Average Grade: B
