It would be easy to denigrate High Crimes on the grounds of its being unrealistic and logically flawed, but there is so much more to pick apart here. High Crimes introduces us to the protagonist, Claire Kubik, a hotshot defense attorney who fits the sterotype. As played by Ashley Judd, Claire is soft and hard in all the right places, but this isn't a groundbreaking performance. Judd, who used to do real acting, has lately been pigeonholed into starring in these cheesy thrillers. The charisma is still there, but it's fading fast. The same cannot be said of Jim Caviezel, who turns in another one-note, sleepwalking performance as Claire's loving husband, Tom. At any rate, it seems that Tom isn't who he claims to be - he's actually an ex-special ops officer wanted for mass murder. The goverment finally catches up with him in his new identity, and it's on Claire's shoulders to help him beat the rap and avoid the death penalty. She's aided by Tom's military advocate, Lt. Terrence Embry (Adam Scott), and her "wild card", Charlie Grimes (Morgan Freeman), an ex-drunk who has had some success with military cases. Standing in her way is the imposing figure of Brig. General Willian Marks (Bruce Davidson, in a watered-down version of the Jack Nicholson part from A Few Good Men), who appears to be untouchable, even though he may be at the top of the cover-up that has resulted in her husband's arrest.
The chief pleasure of High Crimes (and it's a limited one) comes from watching Morgan Freeman, who can bring a sense of integrity to even the silliest thriller. He's the kind of actor who can make the most outlandish line of dialogue sound almost reasonable. He did it in his previous outing, Along Came a Spider, and he does it here. Freeman and Judd, who previously worked together in the infinitley superior Kiss the Girls, have a nice unforced chemistry. It's too bad they don't have more screen time together. This film has no freshness. Stale and cliched to a fault, High Crimes is the kind of movie that might play well to a someone lying on a sofa with nothing to do on Saturday night, but it's not worth a trip to the multiplex, even for those who like the genre and the actors.
Porculus