Movie Review - Double Jeopardy
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1999 / 105 Minutes / R
Reviewed by Dale Nauertz
First and foremost, I must warn you: this is a dumb movie. Its situations are pretty boneheaded. Some of the things the characters do during the course of this movie would disqualify them for the operation of even plastic utensils. Very little of this movie holds up even under half-assed scrutiny.
Yet, it’s all somehow entertaining, and I think that is due directly to the actors involved.
“Double Jeopardy” is the story of a woman triumphing over evil or witless men. (Well, it is). All the men are either incompetent or downright scum. Starting with Ashley’s husband, a callous and heartless SOB who fakes his death and makes sure that Ashley is framed for it. Ashley is then sent to one of the nicest prisons I have ever seen. Nobody in the prison likes her, they tell her so, but aside from telling her that they don’t like her, they don’t really do anything to her. They don’t even put her hand in warm water while she sleeps. I’ve seen more vicious summer camps in movies. In fact, the prison is sorta like a summer camp. The women all make baked goods, sleep in cots and make lots of phone calls. When she gets paroled, she tracks down her husband because one of the women in the prison told her that, if you are accused of killing your husband and he isn’t dead, you really can kill him. Now, I am not entirely sure, but I don’t think that was what our founding fathers had in mind when they designed the constitution.
Or maybe they did.
JEFFERSON: What if this chick’s husband fakes his death and pins it on the chick?
WASHINGTON: Is this chick hot?
JEFFERSON: You bet.
WASHINGTON: Then she can pop him.
JEFFERSON: Really?
WASHINGTON: Why not?
JEFFERSON: Alright, I’ll put that in there.
Sorry, easily sidetracked there.
Anyway, once she is out of prison, Ashley commences tracking the evil husband down. This is where things get even shakier than they were. It takes Ashley a whole three days to track the bastard down. If it were that easy, don’t you think the cops would have figured this out by now? I mean, come on!!!
I wouldn’t dare give away the rest of the movie for you, but if you have seen any movies like this, then you probably know what will happen anyway. During this film, I half-expected Ashley to say to Tommy Lee: “I didn’t kill my husband!”, to which Tommy would, no doubt, respond: “I don’t care!”
So why am I still rating it so highly? Because it still entertains, thanks in no small part to Ashley Judd’s performance. She believes so totally in this character and invests so totally in the situation, that it is difficult for us in the audience not to do the same. Not to mention Tommy Lee Jones. By now, he could play this sort of character in his sleep. In fact, he probably has. He’s the master at playing men tracking innocent and plucky fugitives.
There is a lot of fun to be had while watching this movie, however. Some of it is suspenseful, mainly because we grow to like poor, besotted Ashley and we want to see her come through in the end. In fact, we’d enjoy it even more if our pesky brains didn’t get in the way.
Which reminds me of another bit of unbelievable business about this film: If you were married to someone who looked like Ashley Judd, would you get rid of her, even if there was two million dollars in it for you?
I didn’t think so either.
