La giusta causa

Just Cause (1995) is a movie I recently watched on Tubi. The storyline focuses on a Harvard college professor who used to be a defense lawyer. He receives a hand delivered letter from a black death row inmate's mother pleading his innocence and requesting his assistance on their case. He reluctantly takes on the case and tries to find a crack in the original sentencing. This movie is directed by Arne Glimcher (The Mambo King) and stars Sean Connery (Medicine Man), Laurence Fishburne (The Matrix), Blair Underwood (Deep Impact), Ed Harris (Needful Things) and Kate Capshaw (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom). I had not seen this for a long time and forgot how completely different the feel was the first 2/3rds of the movie versus the final 1/3rd. The character rollout and courthouse drama is fun to watch unfold; however, the final 1/3rd seemed extremely far fetched and unbelievable. Fishburne was great in this and appropriately intense. Connery was solid but oddly awkward and gullible at times. The first 2/3rds of this movie is a 8/10 and the final 1/3rd is a 5/10 for me so I would score this film a 6.5/10 and recommend seeing it once.

"Just Cause" is one of those movies best seen after you turn off your brain. Now I am not saying it's a stupid or bad film....but it has such a convoluted and difficult to believe plot that it's best enjoyed without thinking through all the details. If you do think about them, you're bound to be disappointed.

The story is about a man on death row (Blair Underwood) whose mother (Roby Dee) is able to convince a Harvard Professor (Sean Connery) to leave academia in order to help him with his appeal. The professor is successful and evidence is uncovered that ends up with the man's release. However, there is MUCH more to the film than this....and the story goes in a completely different direction and leads to many surprises.

I think this is a film where some of the performances (particular Ed Harris) are better than the actual story. The story is just completely unbelievable....but again, if you can put this aside, the film is enjoyable.

By the way, if you care this film was made throughout Florida...Gainesville up north and the Ft. Myers/Miami areas in the south. As a Floridian, I found the local scenes pretty exciting.

I read some previous comments stating that this movie loses steam towards the end of the movie and also that it has a similar ending to Cape Fear. I completely disagree. I'm going to give a simple review for the normal moviegoers out there. I thought the casting was perfect. I thought this was one of Ed Harris's best performances. What an evil psychopath!!! I have a lot of respect for his acting after viewing his performance in this movie. I was riveted throughout this movie. If you like mystery thrillers then this definitely a movie you want to see. I also noticed a young Scarlett Johannson in this movie. This movie is filled with top stars and I highly recommend it!

Just Cause takes some of the best parts of three films, Cape Fear, A Touch of Evil and Silence of the Lambs and mixes it together to come up with a good thriller of a film.

Sean Connery is a liberal law professor, married to a former Assistant District Attorney, Kate Capshaw and he's a crusader against capital punishment. Blair Underwood's grandmother Ruby Dee buttonholes Connery at a conference and persuades him to handle her grandson's appeal. He's sitting on death row for the murder of a young girl.

When Connery arrives in this rural Florida county he's up against a tough sheriff played by Laurence Fishburne who's about as ruthless in his crime solving as Orson Welles was in Touch of Evil.

Later on after Connery gets the verdict set aside with evidence he's uncovered, he's feeling pretty good about himself. At that point the film takes a decided turn from Touch of Evil to Cape Fear.

To say that all is not what it seems is to put it mildly. The cast uniformly turns in some good performances. Special mention must be made of Ed Harris who plays a Hannibal Lecter like serial killer on death row with Underwood. He will make your skin crawl and he starts making Connery rethink some of those comfortable liberal premises he's been basing his convictions on. Many a confirmed liberal I've known has come out thinking quite differently once they've become a crime victim.

Of course the reverse is equally true. Many a law and order conservative if they ever get involved on the wrong end of the criminal justice system wants to make real sure all his rights are indeed guaranteed.

Criminal justice is not an end, but a process and a never ending one at that for all society. I guess if Just Cause has a moral that would probably be it.

Although it borrows heavily from better and better-known films, Just Cause is quite entertaining. Several turns are predictable or hard to believe, but this film also shows some interesting character development with Sean Connery, who seems to be a little too old for this role, but was quite believable as the law teacher, who had to learn some lessons about reality and law as it is practised in reality. Laurence Fishburne and Ed Harris seem to enjoy their performances, which they deliver with much relish, and the atmosphere of the town and the Everglades are also captured nicely. But since the plot, especially the last third or so, is really contrived, and Kate Capshaw is so annoyingly bad and shallow in a key part that usually calls for a more sensitive performance, I can not really recommend this film wholeheartedly without having a guilty conscience. See it only if you have nothing else to watch.