Murder of Crows

1st watched 4/27/2002 - 7 out of 10(Dir-Rowdy Herrington): Effective murder mystery with many convoluted plot-twists that are almost too much to believe, but good performances by Gooding, Berenger, and even Eric Stolz, in a somewhat minor role as far as the plot, does a good job. Without giving too much away this is basically about a lawyer who gets disbard for doing the right thing(turning in his guilty client) and then publishes a novel, which he really didn't write, about a lawyer-murderer and then is accused of the actual crimes that were mimicked from the book. That is quite enough in itself, but the story involved even more than that and is told at times from Cuba's characters perspective(which means of course that he isn't dead when it's over, but that‘s okay he‘s the star). The ending seemed a little too long and it worked too hard to make it happy for the viewer but besides that this was a well-done picture that is carried by the stars involved.

I liked Rowdy Herrington's movie for several reasons. There's a clever plot which has noirish and occult overtones, but which ultimately settles into the mystery genre (if it has to be allocated any). The scenario adopts a critical, post-OJ attitude towards criminal lawyers; but then there's a nice ironic twist at the end. There's good use of atmospheric (if a little hackneyed) New Orleans and Florida Keys locations. And for once there's an African-American in a leading role (Cuba Gooding Jr), with hardly any comment on it in the movie - apart from Eric Stoltz's unpleasant Southern rich guy referring to him as "boy".

To discuss the plot at all would reduce the fun for anyone who hasn't seen the movie. Yes, it's contrived and implausible, but only as much as you would expect in a movie of this kind. To those IMDb commenters, who didn't like the movie because Gooding's character does some dumb things, I would simply ask - where's the rule that says the main character has to be smart and have good judgment? Someone else has pointed out that the moral of the film is the simple "Honesty is the best policy"; but I think it adds the cynical words "except when you're on a murder rap"!

The actors attracted me to this film. They were all in it and did a fair amount of acting. The plot was very original. Be forewarned; if you're an attorney, it's not flattering to you. Sample line..."Without lawyers, we wouldn't need lawyers."

This film has a fabulous plot and great acting but it was filmed, scored, and cinemagraphed very poorly. Mr. Gooding is wonderful, as always and Mark Pellegrino is truly a great actor who has been greatly ignored and under-appreciated in the film industry, (though I am sure the stage adores him). This movie could have been so much more. It must not have had a large budget, because the scenes lacked the sense of suspense and drama that is achieved with good scoring and cinematography, but the acting was spectacular, especially the climatic scene with Mark near the end. Even a better musical score could have added a lot to the film. I also think the narration did little to support the plot, it took the drama and suspense from the film and made it seem a lot less serious. The plot is very dark but the film seemed to have lost that. I enjoyed this film nonetheless for its fine acting and marvelous screenplay.

I love legal thriller/mystery movies, and Murder of Crows was one of the best ones I've seen. Cuba Gooding plays a lawyer down on his luck who decides to write a book. His character in the movie mentioned John Grisham, which I thought was funny because I had just been comparing the movie plot to the way John Grisham writes. I was surprised and intrigued by Tom Berenger - he made quiet a convincing investigator. I think he would have been better cast as the main character.