High Crimes

High Crimes is another one of those generic thrillers that Ashley Judd specialises in, you know the kind where she plays a feisty chick who gets in over her head, but somehow manages to buck the odds and make something out of a desperate situation. God bless her. Here she plays Claire Kubik, a successful, media-friendly attorney who is married to Tom (Caviezel), a former marine. Her all-too-perfect world collapses around her when said hubby is arrested for his alleged involvement in the murder of nine civilians in El Salvador some 15 years earlier. Certain that her husband has been framed, Claire vows to fight for his freedom, and as well as brushing up on military law herself, enlists the aid of an alcoholic lawyer (Freeman).

One gets the impression that nobody ever bothered checking to see if High Crimes made much narrative sense, because rarely has a major motion picture been so strikingly inefficient when it comes to detailing characters' motivations or for that matter, plot matters. The story is riddled with inconsistencies, and things get so desperate in the second hour that the god awful ending comes as little more than a release from this bewildering fare.