Paint by numbers (2/16/01)
____________
Under Suspicion. [Stephen Hopkins, 2000. Written by Tom Provost and W. Peter Iliff; from a novel by John Wainwright.]
When a couple of specimens of teenage jailbait turn up raped and strangled, Puerto Rican police detective Morgan Freeman hauls in wealthy and influential tax attorney Gene Hackman for questioning; and, with the kind of withering crossexamination that would have pinned the Ramsey murder on the nearest available suspect in time for lunch, succeeds in turning over every rock in Hackman’s psyche, sandblasting every trace of polish from his personality, controverting his every statement, exposing his every peccadillo, and, finally, extracting a confession every bit as sound as the ones the Inquisition always managed to extort from the instruments of Satan. [In Hackman’s defense, if you were married to Monica Bellucci and she wouldn’t put out it would be pretty easy to drive you over the edge, too.] Then of course the last-second reprieve when the real killer is caught redhanded; many on death row were not so fortunate. — Technically impressive, with layered revelations,
Rashomon-like multiply-versioned flashbacks [oh, what is Reality, anyway], and neatly jumpcut a la Soderbergh [though not of course so good], but mainly [since Hackman is the guy who actually gets raped and strangled] a reminder of why you should never talk to the police without a lawyer at your elbow. And a magnum in your hand.
____________Rauchen verboten (2/14/01)
