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Double Jeopardy (1999 film)

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For the 1955 film of the same name, see Double Jeopardy (1955 film).
Double Jeopardy
Theatrical release poster
Directed byBruce Beresford
Written byDavid Weisberg
Douglas Cook
Produced byLeonard Goldberg
Starring
CinematographyPeter James
Edited byMark Warner
Music byNormand Corbeil
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release date
  • September 24, 1999 (1999-09-24)
Running time
105 minutes
CountryUnited States[1]
LanguageEnglish
Budget$40 million[2]
Box office$177.8 million[3]

Double Jeopardy is a 1999 American crime adventure thriller film directed by Bruce Beresford, and starring Ashley Judd, Tommy Lee Jones, and Bruce Greenwood. Released on September 24, the film received mixed reviews from critics and grossed $177 million.

Plot

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Libby and Nick Parsons are wealthy residents of Whidbey Island, Washington. Libby's friend Angela watches their four-year-old son, Matty, so they can spend a romantic weekend sailing. Libby awakens to find blood everywhere and Nick missing. The Coast Guard arrive and finds Libby holding a bloody knife.

Although Nick's body is not found, Libby is convicted of murder. Her motive is assumed to be a $2 million life insurance policy and her alleged knowledge that Nick was under investigation for embezzlement. Libby asks Angela to adopt Matty. When Angela stops bringing Matty to visit, Libby tracks Angela to San Francisco and calls her. During their conversation, Nick enters and Matty calls out, "Daddy!"; Libby realizes that Nick faked his death. After Libby fails to get investigative help, Margaret, a fellow inmate and former lawyer, advises her to get paroled by good behavior and falsely claim remorse for "killing" Nick. Once free, Libby can kill Nick with impunity due to the Double Jeopardy Clause in the US Constitution.

After six years in prison, Libby is paroled to a halfway house under the supervision of parole officer Travis Lehman, a former law professor whose wife and daughter left him due to his alcoholism. To search for Nick, Libby violates curfew and is caught breaking into Matty's old school on Whidbey Island to get Angela's records. As Lehman is taking Libby back to prison, she drives his car off a ferry in Puget Sound, grabs his gun, and swims to shore. She visits her mother in another state who gives her cash and her truck

Libby obtains Angela's address in Colorado. Angela's former neighbor says she died three years earlier in a natural gas explosion. An archived newspaper photo of Angela reveals a painting by Wassily Kandinsky owned by Nick. Libby traces him to New Orleans through an art gallery. Lehman almost catches her at the gallery, but she escapes. In New Orleans, she finds Nick running a small luxury hotel under the alias Jonathan Devereaux.

Libby confronts Nick during a fund-raising auction at his hotel and demands he return Matty in exchange for her walking away. Nick claims that he faked his death to avoid prison and provide her and Matty with the insurance money, not believing she would be convicted, and that Angie's death was accidental. Libby scoffs at his lies. During their conversation, Lehman arrive at the hotel, and Libby slips out. Lehman tells "Jonathan" that Libby believes he is her dead ex-husband and informs the local police that she is in the area.

Libby arranges to meet Nick at Lafayette Cemetery to get Matty. Nick hires a boy to lure Libby to a mausoleum, where Nick knocks Libby out and locks her in a coffin with a corpse. She shoots the hinges off the coffin lid with Lehman's gun and escapes. Meanwhile, Lehman is in "Jonathan's" office and notices the Kandinsky artwork Libby was searching for in the gallery. Now unsure of Libby's guilt, Lehman asks his boss in Washington state to fax him a photocopy of Nicholas Parsons' driver's license.

Lehman intercepts Libby and she breaks down sobbing. He goes to Nick's hotel and reveals he knows Nick's true identity. After Lehman agrees to a $1 million bribe, Nick alludes to "murdering" Libby. Libby emerges with Lehman's gun and both she and Lehman tell Nick that she can kill him with impunity due to the double jeopardy rule. However, she instead shoots a bullet through the Kandinsky painting. After Nick says where Matty is, Lehman reveals he recorded Nick's confession. Nick pulls a gun, wounding Lehman. In the ensuing struggle, Nick is about to shoot Lehman again, but Libby recovers her gun and kills Nick. Lehman insists they return to Washington to win her pardon. They later find Matty at a boarding school in Georgia, where he immediately recognizes his mother and they embrace.

Cast

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Production

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After Michelle Pfeiffer, Meg Ryan and Brooke Shields all declined the role, Jodie Foster was attached to star in the film as Libby Parsons and Bruce Beresford met with her several times about the script:

She said to me once, when we were having... not an argument, we had different points of view over something, and she said, "We'll have to do it my way, I'm afraid." And I said, "Why, Jodie?" And she said, 'Because I'm so intelligent. I'm such an intelligent person that there is no point in disagreeing with me because I'm always right." I thought she was joking, but she wasn't! [laughs] She had this extraordinary opinion of her own IQ.[4]

Double Jeopardy was filmed from Jul 15, 1998 to Oct 21, 1998.[5]

Reception

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On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 28% based on 87 reviews and an average rating of 4.5/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "A talented cast fails to save this unremarkable thriller."[6] On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 40 out of 100 based on 30 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[7] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[8]

Roger Ebert gave the film two and a half stars out of four, and said "This movie was made primarily in the hopes that it would gross millions and millions of dollars, which probably explains most of the things that are wrong with it."[9] Leonard Maltin gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, calling it "slick entertainment".[10] Mick LaSalle from the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that the film is a "well-acted diversion, directed by Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy) with an intelligent grasp of the moment-to-moment emotion".[11] For her performance in the film Ashley Judd won Favorite Actress at the 6th Blockbuster Entertainment Awards.[12]

Accolades

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Award Category Subject Result
MTV Movie Award Best Female Performance Ashley Judd Nominated
Blockbuster Entertainment Awards Favorite Actress – Suspense Ashley Judd Won
Favorite Actor – Suspense Tommy Lee Jones Nominated
Favorite Supporting Actor – Suspense Bruce Greenwood Nominated

Box office

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The film spent three weeks as the No. 1 film. It grossed $116 million in the US and $61 million overseas.[3]

Misinterpretation of the concept of double jeopardy

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The film incorrectly implies that the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment gives someone a free pass to commit a subsequent crime if they are wrongfully convicted. As the newspaper column "The Straight Dope" pointed out: "a crime, for double jeopardy purposes, consists of a specific set of facts. Change the facts and you've got a new crime [...] no one would believe that a person convicted of beating Richard Roe to a pulp on December 8th could avoid another conviction for tracking down poor Rich in February and whaling on him again."[13] In the case of homicide, which cannot naturally be committed against the same person twice, it may give the impression that the first, wrongful conviction would preclude a factually correct second one; legally, this is not the case. The second prosecution could result in a retrial for the first conviction, since the veracity of that verdict would be undermined by known facts. However, murder is a state crime so, in Libby's case, a prosecution of her for shooting Nick to death in the state of Louisiana would not be affected by her conviction for stabbing him to death in Washington, the states being separate sovereigns.

References

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  1. ^ "Double Jeopardy (EN)". Lumiere. Retrieved 27 June 2017.
  2. ^ "Double Jeopardy (1999) – Financial Information".
  3. ^ a b Double Jeopardy. Box Office Mojo.
  4. ^ Urban, Andrew L. "BERESFORD, BRUCE : DOUBLE JEOPARDY", Urban Cinesfile. (Archived 2012-11-13 at the Wayback Machine.) Accessed 11 November 2012.
  5. ^ "A Vancouver BC set report on DOUBLE JEOPARDY". Ain't It Cool News. August 28, 1998. Retrieved May 11, 2024.
  6. ^ Double Jeopardy. Rotten Tomatoes.
  7. ^ "Double Jeopardy Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved November 12, 2020.
  8. ^ "CinemaScore". cinemascore.com.
  9. ^ Ebert, Roger. Double Jeopardy. Sep. 24. 1999.
  10. ^ Maltin, Leonard; Sader, Luke; Clark, Mike (2008). Leonard Maltin's 2009 Movie Guide. Penguin Group. p. 374. ISBN 978-0-452-28978-9.
  11. ^ LaSalle, Mick. Criminally Good. San Francisco Chronicle. September 24, 1999
  12. ^ "Blockbuster Entertainment Award winners". Variety. May 9, 2000. Retrieved May 20, 2013.
  13. ^ "What happens if you confess to a crime after being found not guilty?". The Straight Dope. March 6, 2007. Archived from the original on 2008-04-30. Retrieved August 23, 2021.
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