Don’t try and fool your wife into thinking that you are dead. By all means try and fool her into thinking that you are asleep but leave it at that.
However, Ashley Judd’s screen husband decides to ignore the advice I have given above. Not only does he pretend to be dead, he fakes his death in such a way as to frame his wife for it!
HOW SO?
Well….he goes for a boat trip with the wife. They make passionate lurrrve and while she is asleep (due to the Mickey Finn that he has put in her wine) he sets about his dastardly deeds. Having phoned the Coastguard he cuts himself and smears the blood liberally over his wife and the boat. The knife with which he does this is then left upon the deck. When she finally wakes up he is gone she follows the trail of blood and the Coastguard materialise. You don’t actually get the ancillary details until later on in the film.
SO HOW DOES SHE GET INTO TROUBLE?
When the Coastguard arrive she has the knife in her hands. Also, it transpires that large insurance policies exist on the two of them with the spouses as sole beneficiaries. She is put on trial blah blah blah. GUILTY!
ANYTHING ELSE?
Well…. Her supposed friend is in on it. After agreeing to adopt her son the friend stops bringing him (and herself) to the prison for visits. Ashley manages to track down her ‘friend’ to San Fransisco and finds out that her husband is alive; he walks into the room while the two women are on the phone and the child calls out ‘Daddy!’.
Ashley keeps her nose clean and gets parole after six years. This is not bad considering that she was in for the premeditated murder of her spouse and that the crime was commissioned by means of a frenzied knife attack. She decides to go and find her husband.
You see, under the 'Double Jeopardy' rule she cannot be tried for killing her husband a second time. Hence the title of the film. Of course, though this point is brought up several times, no-one mentions the fact that she could be done for having a concealed weapon, threatening behaviour etc.
After being let out she is put into a halfway house run by Tommy Lee Jones. She breaks the curfew and he goes after her. She escapes in a very well done underwater action scene and he chases after her. Before you ask, this woman is no relation to Harrison Ford or Dr. Richard Kimball!
She finds that the ex friend is dead and tracks her husband down to New Orleans. (I forgot to mention that we commenced in Washington state.) He tries to kill her and fails. Tommy Lee (not Pammy’s TL) has begun to believe she is innocent and joins up with her to help her get her own back on her husband. A gun battle ensues at the end and the bad guy gets it and Tommy Lee gets it in the shoulder (how noble!)
Ashley concludes the film by going to meet up with her son whom she has not seen for six years or more. In a poignant rejoinder to what she has been told in prison (ie that a child will always remember its mother’s voice) the son recognises mommy when she speaks. Bless!
I liked it, some folk don’t but I felt that there was a good bit of action and excitement. So there!
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Production Year: 2004 - Drama - Director: Nick Cassavetes - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over, 12 years and over - Starring: Rachel McAdams, Ryan Gosling, Gena Rowlands
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