Cast
Travis Lehman (Tommy Lee Jones)
Libby Parsons (Ashley Judd)
Nick Parsons (Bruce Greenwood)
Angie (Annabeth Gish)
Directed by Bruce Beresford Written by Robert Benton
Rated R for language, sexuality, brief nudity, and some violence
Running Time: 106 minutes Distributed by Paramount
Double
Jeopardy is a pretty good thriller that is paced by the terrific
acting of Tommy Lee Jones. Libby Parsons (Judd) is a normal
woman that is framed for killing her husband, Nick Parsons
(Greenwood). The only family that Libby has left is her young
son Mattie. After letting her best friend, Angie (Gish), adopt
Mattie, Libby is sentenced to 10 years in prison. While in
prison, Libby learns that Nick faked his death, along with
the help of Angie in order to get money in an insurance scam.
Now sealed away from her son and full anger Libby is informed
about an important aspect from a fellow prisoner. Libby learns
about the concept "double jeopardy", which is that the state
already convicted her of killing her husband, the state can't
do it again. So, when she gets out prison she can kill Nick
and the state can not touch her. Libby then becomes focused
and determined to get out prison as fast as she can. After
being paroled, Libby is faced with one obstacle, her parole
officer. Travis Lehman (Jones) is a strict and mean individual
that is watching Libby's every move. Once, Libby breaks her
parole by going after Nick, the film turns into a twisted
chase of cat and mouse between Libby and Travis.
Double
Jeopardy is an everyday thriller with a different type of
story. The whole "double jeopardy" concept works very well
as the backbone of this film.
The
acting is what contributes most of all to the film. Tommy
Lee Jones is outstanding as the fearless and obsessed parole
officer. Jones' natural body language and tone really makes
him standout as the highlight of this film. Double Jeopardy
is Jones' first film in awhile; he is now one of those actors
that makes a movie every once in awhile. However, every performance
he gives is a real entertaining treat to watch. Ashley Judd
gives a good performance as the frightful victim looking for
revenge. Ashley Judd just keeps doing good work and establishing
herself as a movie star out of her family's shadow. Judd breakthrough
performance was in 1995's Heat as Val Kilmer's wife, ever
since she has been receiving nice scripts and great male lead
actors to work with. Jones and Judd really do blend well chemistry
wise in the film. It is very similar to the chemistry that
Judd had in her last film, Kiss the Girls, with Morgan Freeman.
I think it is very enjoyable to watch two totally opposite
actors work well together.
The
script for Double Jeopardy is very quick and jumpy. The plot
is present very simply without as many twists as one might
expect from this film. It seems that some of the loopholes
in the movie were either edited out or cut from the script.
An example is that we see all of Nick's blood and the mysterious
knife that was all set up to frame Libby, but the audience
is never revealed to how Nick got off the boat he was on.
The film is however a thriller, it doesn't hit on everything,
just touch on the main plot points, and Double Jeopardy does.
Double
Jeopardy will probably be a film that will click well with
all ranges of adult audiences. The star power of Jones and
Judd will probably also contribute to the film's success.
Double Jeopardy is just one of those common and frequent movies
that isn't incredibly great, it is just a fun movie.
Report
Card Grade: B-
Beastman's
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