Présumé coupable

Despite the almost unanimous negative reviews by viewers and professional critics, I liked "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt". Why? This movie is a combination of an old-fashioned mystery story combined with an indie film style.

I have been a longtime fan of old detective films and I also like modern low-budget independent movies like "Management" and "Little Miss Sunshine". This combination of styles; old-fashioned mystery and indie low-budget, didn't bother me.

I accepted that many of the actors were not the greatest around today, or that the lighting and sound was almost never polished and was often primitive. And that the music soundtrack was just adequate.

But what I very much enjoyed was the story itself. This is a great mystery plot which kept me guessing. And I like those kinds of stories.

A very unconvincing cast, including Douglas, delivers an extremely implausible story packed with clichés, with poor cinematography and old-fashioned music. I am usually OK with implausible stories and the original movie is probably good... but for heaven's sake, if you are going to do a remake, at least try to make it feel like the 21st century. The only thing the movie had going for it was a fairly good dialog (probably derived from the original manuscript to Fritz Langs original from 1956), but the lead actor and actress did a pretty poor job delivering them. I almost feel sorry for Douglas, remembering him in excellent movies like Fatal Attraction, Traffic and Falling Down, having to tarnish his good name with movies like this. I cannot for the life of me understand why he agreed to participate in such a B movie. Maybe he needed money (?) or maybe he cannot bear not being in the spotlight, but even so, he should try to make a reasonable effort. This was not up to his usual standards.

New take on the 1956 story by douglas morrow, on exposing a corrupt official. In this case, reporter cj nicholas (metcalfe) is trying to get the goods on the district attorney hunter (douglas). He's pretty sure hunter is planting evidence to get convictions, but needs to come up with irrefutable proof. What could go wrong? The answer is... plenty. And unless a miracle happens, cj could be in huge, huge trouble. It's pretty good. Some suspense. Some twists and turns along the way. Clearly, cj and his work buddy should have expected the dirty tricks from someone as unethical and well-connected as hunter. Direction and updates by peter hyams. He's won some film fest awards.

This movie is a remake but will be judged on its own merit, especially since I did not see the original.

On paper, things look good. You've got the seed of a promising story featuring several characters who could have been interesting, some courtroom drama which could have been intense, some plot twists which could have been shocking and a star lead actor in Michael Douglas who could have sold you this movie with his charisma.

But none of it ever happens. And much of the fault lies with Hyams' terribly outdated direction. While he used to direct somewhat interesting films several decades ago, Hyams has long since lost any edge he might have had and every weakness in his style which we readily forgave back in the 80s are now terribly grating when seen in a 2009 movie. The photography is downright boring, the music is cheesy, pacing and editing awful. Everything seems to come out of a made-for-TV or direct-to-video movie featuring Cheryl Ladd or some other has been.

Michael Douglas only has a few scenes and gives by far the best performance but that's not saying much in this present case, because everybody else is just terrible. Really awful. On top of that, several lines in the script are embarrassing, which makes the actors' job harder. Jesse Metcalfe and Amber Tamblyn are both the real co-leads of this flick and do absolutely nothing with their screen time. Orlando Jones is terribly miscast.

While the premise and basic sketch of the whole plot could have been interesting, neither the writers or the director made it believable. The twists along the way of the story might have been surprising for an average moviegoer in 1984. A quarter of a century later, even a lobotomized hamster will see it from a mile (provided you don't fall asleep before that).

There are so many negatives to this movie that usually it would be worth a 1. But I am raising it by one point for Michael Douglas giving a decent performance and by another point for the interesting seed of a story.

3/10 for the last movie by director Hyams I will ever watch

The career of director/cinematographer Peter Hyams has been one of slow decent into mediocrity like Beyond a Reasonable Doubt, which has just a slight improvement over his previous entry A Sound of Thunder. This movie is arguably the dopiest courtroom drama of the decade (at least). It is a story that lives purely on coincidence and contrivance. It feels rushed and ends on an anti-climactic note. Sounds pretty bad huh? Actually it wasn't. There is something kind of amusing about the idiocy of Beyond a Reasonable Doubt which may be just enough to keep you watching. Sometimes it gets actually fairly tense.

C. J. Nicholas is an investigative reporter in Missouri who is convinced that the district attorney, has been faking evidence for the last 17 murder cases he has taken on. In order to expose him, C. J. comes up with a crazy scheme which involves framing himself for a murder, getting arrested and hoping that Nicholas tries to pin something on him. Sounds good, but something goes very wrong.

Not for a moment is the story believable, and it takes too many ways out of conflict, including rushing scenes, throwing in cheap surprises, and also a deus ex machina to conclude the whole thing. If you are not bothered by this, you may find something to salvage from Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. There are some quirky scenes here and there and a few good Hyams shots

Well, it could have been worse I suppose, the movie was better than I expected, but I think I may be giving it more generosity than it deserves.