Miscarriage of Justice

Where the Sidewalk Ends (Fox Film Noir)

Otto Preminger made four films noirs at Fox, all terrific. If we set aside the peerless Laura as more psychological mystery-romance than noir, there's plenty of evidence for judging Where the Sidewalk Ends the best of the lot (the other two being Fallen Angel, a study in small-town perversity, and Whirlpool, a delicious exercise in creepy psychology, slippery mise-en-scène, and daringly complicated point-of-view). It's a hard-edged tale of a borderline-vicious New York police detective, Mark Dixon (Dana Andrews), with tortuous personal reasons for overzealousness in going after the bad guys. Much of the film unreels in one night, when the murder of a high-roller from out of town precipitates a string of events that lead to Dixon's becoming an accidental killer. Preminger's direction is taut, forceful, and fluid, especially when Dixon sets about creating an alibi for himself. Unfortunately, an innocent man gets implicated, with Dixon looking on, and the guilty cop's moral and psychological torment increases with each turn of the screw.

Tightly scripted by Ben Hecht, Preminger's film lacks the anguished poetry of Nicholas Ray's On Dangerous Ground, another 1950 noir centered on a cop (Robert Ryan) addicted to ultraviolence, but its grip is relentless. Preminger had a shrewd instinct for tapping a certain thuggish strain in Andrews, whose performance here is arguably his best. They're reunited with Gene Tierney, as a woman caught in the sidewash of sordid goings-on, and Laura cameraman Joseph La Shelle, whose work has a luster beyond the accustomed semidocumentary look of Fox noirs. Gary Merrill, usually a bland nice-guy, relishes the chance to play nasty as Dixon's gangland bête noire Tommy Scalise, a homoerotic villain in the Tommy Udo vein with a menthol inhaler as fetish object. --Richard T. Jameson

I Wake Up Screaming (Fox Film Noir)

Promoter Frankie Christopher being grilled by police in the murder of model Vicky Lynn recalls in flashback: First meeting her as a waitress Frankie decides to parlay her beauty into social acceptance and a lucrative career. He succeeds only too well: she's on the eve of deserting him for Hollywood...when someone kills her. Now Frankie gets the feeling that Inspector Ed Cornell is determined to pin the killing on him and only him. He's right. And the only one he can turn to for help is Jill the victim's sister who's been cool toward him...System Requirements:Running Time: 82 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: MYSTERY/SUSPENSE UPC: 024543244547 Manufacturer No: 2234454

No Way Out

This implausible, but effective 1987 film stars Kevin Costner (Bull Durham, Wyatt Earp) as a naval officer and CIA agent who may not be what he seems. This sexy thriller is an espionage mystery and an enigmatic character study of two men trying to be faithful to the loyalties they hold. Costner begins a torrid love affair with the mistress (Sean Young) of the Secretary of Defense, but when she turns up dead, Costner is implicated in a web of intrigue that threatens national security and exposes personal secrets at the highest levels. The Secretary and his men try to cover up the affair while simultaneously searching for a Soviet mole in their ranks. Featuring an exciting chase sequence through the Washington, D.C., subways, No Way Out is a standard issue thriller that nonetheless keeps the action coming. --Robert Lane

Imagine being a hunter leading highly trained bloodhounds in pursuit of a killer...and the trail leads directly to you! Starring Academy-Award® winners Kevin Costner* and Gene Hackman** No Way Out is a mesmerizing look at Washington power (The Hollywood Reporter). Capturing a well-deserved four stars from critic Roger Ebert this taut [and] stylish (Newsweek) thriller is fast-paced and powerful -- a perfect nailbiter (Variety)! In a fit of rage Secretary of Defense David Brice (Hackman) murders his mistress. To keep a lid on the scandal Brice s loyal aide (Will Patton) creates the perfect cover up: he invents a more enticing killer -- a Russian spy -- and then enlists naval commander Tom Farrell (Costner) to find him. But as a chilling twist of fate would have it Farrell also has a strong connection to the victim and now all the clues he s been hired to uncover are leading straight to him! In a desperate race against time Farrell s search for the killer is not only a matter of national security but also a matter of saving his own hide.Special Features:Collectible BookletOriginal Theatrical TrailerSystem Requirements: Running Time 114 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: MYSTERY/SUSPENSE Rating: R UPC: 027616843623 Manufacturer No: 908436

Whirlpool (Fox Film Noir)

Laura will always be director Otto Preminger's most beloved movie, but he gets closer to the essence of film noir in this fascinatingly slippery item about a psychiatrist's wife whose weakness for kleptomania makes her prey to an oily hypnotist, con artist, and manipulator par excellence. The fashion-plate wife (dresses, robes, and peignoirs by Oleg Cassini) is played by Laura herself, Gene Tierney. The mellifluous conniver is Jose Ferrer, coming off like the illegitimate son of Waldo Lydecker ("I'm so glad you're here--you make Tina's party seem an almost human event"). Among other things, Ferrer would probably like to get Tierney into bed, and a good many people--including Richard Conte as the caring husband--come to believe he has. But that's not the extent of his ambitions, and before long Tierney has been framed for a murder of convenience to clear up another bit of messiness in the cad's career. Whirlpool's mise-en-scène has a sinuous fluidity and subtle play of light and shadow (it was among the last films shot by that master of black-and-white, Arthur C. Miller), and the complexly structured screenplay--by Ben Hecht and Andrew Solt--takes us by surprise in reel after reel. There's nothing redeeming about Ferrer's character (except how much pleasure his villainy affords), but Preminger doesn't really side with any of the characters or permit our facile identification with anyone. Different parts of the movie are dominated by each of the key figures, including police detective Charles Bickford, and we keep learning there's more to each of them than we initially assumed. Whirlpool's a good title for it. Dive in. --Richard T. Jameson

The wife of a psycho-analyst falls prey to a devious quack hypnotist when he discovers she is an habitual shoplifter. Then one of his previous patients now being treated by the real doctor is found murdered, with her still at the scene, and suspicion points only one way.

Double Jeopardy

Young Libby Parsons (Ashley Judd) is happy as a clam, and why not? She's got a loving, successful husband (Bruce Greenwood), an adorable son, and an island home to die for. One morning, after a romantic sailing expedition with her husband, Libby finds herself covered in blood. Her husband's missing, the boat resembles a murder scene, and there's a knife on the deck. One might stop right there and call for help; Libby, however, takes matters--or, more specifically, the knife--into her own hands, and the moment she does, there's the Coast Guard. Faster than you can say frame-up, Libby's been charged with murder and jailed, with her young son stripped from her custody. It's all cut-and-dried, except for one thing: Libby's husband isn't dead, and she's about to track him down. And thanks to the Fifth Amendment's double jeopardy rule, she can't be charged twice for his murder.

Double Jeopardy has a singularly seductive revenge premise and, in Judd, one of the most seductive leading ladies to grace the silver screen in recent years. So then why does this thriller feel like it came from the bottom of the Lifetime television movie barrel? Instead of taking a gritty, hard-boiled approach, the film plays up all of Libby's mushy emotions--tellingly, the director here is Bruce Beresford, whose best film, Driving Miss Daisy, is as far from thriller territory as you can get. No matter how stoically or deviously Judd plays her, Libby comes across as a soccer mom with a slight taste for blood. Only in a few scenes, specifically when she tracks her wily husband to his new identity in New Orleans, does Judd get to strut her stuff, stealing an evening gown and crashing his charity auction. Most of the time, though, this thriller offers only a smattering of suspense. Well, at least like Libby, the filmmakers can't be condemned twice for the same crime. With Tommy Lee Jones duplicating his Fugitive role, as Libby's conscientious parole officer. --Mark Englehart

Libby Parsons discovers that the husband she was convicted of murdering staged his own death and framed her for the crime.
Genre: Suspense
Rating: R
Release Date: 12-DEC-2003
Media Type: DVD

The Last Castle

The Last Castle rides high on a wave of American patriotism, respectful of military service and protocol, and primed to ignite anyone's passion for justice against corrupted ideals. This intense prison drama begins when a court-martialed three-star general (Robert Redford) is sentenced to military prison for defying a presidential command. The prison's warden (James Gandolfini) is a jealous martinet who's never seen combat, and when the jailed general seizes command of the prison to protest the warden's abuse of power, The Last Castle erupts toward a classic showdown between integrity and cowardice. Former critic and West Point graduate Rod Lurie (The Contender) directs this intimate battle with manipulative skill, appealing more to emotions than intelligence, but his stellar cast keeps the action on track, and a potent script returns flag-waving to its rightful place of honor. --Jeff Shannon

The Negotiator

This film centers on a former FBI hostage negotiator who after being framed for murder tries to clear his name by taking several people hostage in order to uncover the guilty party.Running Time: 143 min.System Requirements:Interactive Menus Production Notes Additional Footage Documentaries Video Format: Widescreen (no AR specified) Subtitles: French English Track Info: English: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround French: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: R UPC: 085391675020

Although it eventually runs out of smart ideas and resorts to a typically explosive finale, this above-average thriller rises above its formulaic limitations on the strength of powerful performances by Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey. Both play Chicago police negotiators with hotshot reputations, but when Jackson's character finds himself falsely accused of embezzling funds from a police pension fund, he's so thoroughly framed that he must take extreme measures to prove his innocence. He takes hostages in police headquarters to buy time and plan his strategy, demanding that Spacey be brought in to mediate with him as an army of cops threatens to attack, and a media circus ensues. Both negotiators know how to get into the other man's thoughts, and this intellectual showdown allows both Spacey and Jackson to ignite the screen with a burst of volatile intensity. Director F. Gary Gray is disadvantaged by an otherwise predictable screenplay, but he has a knack for building suspense and is generous to a fine supporting cast, including Paul Giamatti as one of Jackson's high-strung hostages, and the late J.T. Walsh in what would sadly be his final big-screen role. The movie should have trusted its compelling characters a little more, probing their psyches more intensely to give the suspense a deeper dramatic foundation, but it's good enough to give two great actors a chance to strut their stuff. --Jeff Shannon

The Net

The Net, the first of Hollywood's big cyberthrillers of the mid-1990s, was also the most successful, thanks in large part to the natural appeal of star Sandra Bullock. Still riding high from Speed and While You Were Sleeping, Bullock plays a computer expert victimized by sinister cyberforces who steal her identity for reasons unknown. It's a clever combination of high-tech paranoia and Hitchcockian references (including Jeremy Northam as a romantic stranger named Devlin, after Cary Grant in Notorious). Film historians may look back someday on films like this--Roger Ebert calls them "hacksploitation"--to see what they reveal about our society's reaction to the increasing role of technology in our lives, just as we now study the fears of Communism and the atom bomb reflected in films of the 1950s. Dennis Miller and Diane Baker costar. --Jim Emerson

The Skulls (Collector's Edition)

Think of the Skulls as a collegiate Freemason's society--an ultrasecret organization that opens the doors of power to a few lucky Ivy League students, including school rowing star Luke McNamara (Joshua Jackson), a poor kid with a misspent youth. "If it's secret and it's elite, it can't be good," cautions his journalist roommate, but the lure of lavish gifts and cabal-like ceremonies in torch-lit stone chambers is too much to resist--until his roomie is murdered and his own Skull "soulmate" Caleb Mandrake (Paul Walker) is the number one suspect.

There's a campy kick to the initiation ceremonies, ancient rituals in dungeonlike alcoves filled with haze and shadow, performed by enthralled frat boys, but as Jackson flounders at the center of a Skull conspiracy it spins into ludicrous melodrama. See the college president become a thug for the Skull godfather! See street punks become high-tech criminal masterminds! See the conspiracy collapse under its own absurdity!

Jackson is pretty much a dud as the well-meaning hero, but Walker, with flashing eyes under furrowed brow, is mesmerizing as a haunted rich kid torn between a ruthless, overbearing father (Craig T. Nelson) and his conscience. Director Rob Cohen drives the film at a galloping pace and fills it with foreboding images, but his humorless solemnity finally buries The Skulls in a heap of clichés. --Sean Axmaker

Runaway Jury (Widescreen Edition)

Based on the bestseller by John Grisham, Runaway Jury is a slick thriller that's exciting enough to overcome the gaps in its plot. The ultimate target has been changed: Grisham's legal assault on the tobacco industry was switched to the hot-button issue of gun control (no doubt to avoid comparison to The Insider) in a riveting exposé of jury-tampering. Gene Hackman plays the ultra-cynical, utterly unscrupulous pawn of the gun-makers, using an expert staff and advanced electronics to hand-pick a New Orleans jury that will return a favorable verdict; Dustin Hoffman (making his first screen appearance with real-life former roommate Hackman) defends the grieving widow of a gun-shooting victim with idealistic zeal, while maverick juror John Cusack and accomplice Rachel Weisz play both ends against the middle in a personal quest to hold gun-makers accountable. It's riveting stuff, even when it's obvious that Grisham and director Gary Fleder have glossed over any details that would unravel the plot's intricate design. --Jeff Shannon

From master storyteller John Grisham and the director of Don't Say A Word comes a taut suspense-thriller that "grabs hold of you and never lets go" (Philadelphia Metro). In their first film together, screen legends Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman face off in this electrifying nail-biter about a ruthless jury consultant who'll do anything to win. With lives and millions of dollars at stake, the fixer plays a deadly cat-and-mouse game with a jury member (John Cusack) and a mysterious woman (Rachel Weisz) who offer to "deliver" the verdict to the highest bidder. Packed with danger, intrigue and pulse-pounding twists and turns, Runaway Jury rules!