DOUBLE JEOPARDY
Judd is Libby Parsons, the wife of Nick Parsons (Bruce Greenwood), an
entrepreneur with a lot of highly placed friends. The two have a little
boy named Matty (Benjamin Weir), but since his dad is so busy, he spends
most of his time with Libby or her best friend Angela (Annabeth Gish). The
Parsons seem to be living everyone's dream life until they take a trip on
their new sailboat. Libby wakes up one night to find blood all over the
place and a galley knife on the deck, but no Nick. A subsequent search turns
up nothing, and Nick is soon declared dead. What's more, the evidence seems
to point to Libby as the sole suspect for her husband's murder. She receives
some support from her lawyer (Jay Brazeau) and from Angela, who agrees to
take care of Matty, but Libby is nonetheless convicted and sent to prison.
Although she is having a great time learning how to fistfight and use
cigarettes for currency, Libby still would like to get out of there, since
she's innocent and all. Then, through an unplanned phone call to Angela,
she discovers that Nick has the nerve to be still alive. He has changed
his name, married Angela, and they are living high on the hog with the $2
million collected from the life insurance company after his death. (Don't
those companies have rules against offing your spouse for the money?) Libby's
mood instantly turns from "thank God he's alive" to "I'm
going to kill that sonofab*tch." After 6 years in the joint, she is
released with Travis Lehman (Jones) as her parole officer. As soon as practicable,
she jumps parole and sets out to find and kill Nick, and get Matty back,
with Travis hot on her tail.
I guess we're supposed to be rooting for Libby, but she doesn't make a very good protagonist. After her release, she's so willing to break the law, it's hard to believe she wasn't a criminal in the first place. She breaks into an office and steals files. She beats up on cops. She steals Travis's gun, dumps his car in the Pacific, and nearly drowns him. All so she can shoot her husband "in the middle of Mardi Gras" and get her son back. Are we supposed to want her to have a tearful, touching reunion with Matty after she kills his father? What's she gonna teach him — how many cartons of smokes it takes to get an extra blanket in prison? The double jeopardy thing could yield an interesting story, but Weisberg's plot has as many holes as last year's gym socks. Jones and Judd are convincing enough, and director Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy) keeps the dramatic pressure on, but the story is just too pretentious to be taken seriously. ***