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Ashley Judd, Morgan Freeman, Jim Caviezel, Amanda Peet, Tom Bower ... see more see more... , Adam Scott , Bruce Davison , Juan Carlos Hernández , Michael Gaston , Jude Ciccolella , Emilio Rivera , Michael Shannon , John Billingsley , Bruce Davidson

Defense attorney Claire Kubik (Ashley Judd) seems to have the perfect life. She has a high profile job at a big firm, a beautiful home outside San Francisco, and a husband, Tom (James Caviezel of The ... read more read more...Thin Red Line), who loves her. Claire's biggest problem appears to be that she wants to have a baby, and she's having trouble getting pregnant. But when the police investigate a routine break-in at her home, they uncover the truth about her husband's identity, and her life is thrown into turmoil. Claire finds out that her husband's name is actually Ron Chapman, and that he's an ex-marine accused of murdering seven innocent civilians in El Salvador during a raid in the late '80s. He admits that he was there, and that he changed his identity to escape prosecution for the crimes, but he insists that he's innocent, and that the massacre was committed by another soldier under the orders of a powerful general (Bruce Davison), who is using Ron as a patsy to cover it up. Claire is eventually convinced that Ron's telling the truth. Faced with defending her husband in an unfamiliar military courtroom, Claire enlists the aid of Charles Grimes (Morgan Freeman), an ex-Army judge advocate with an axe to grind. Stonewalled by the military bureaucracy at every turn, they uncover a web of deception and disappearing witnesses, and they soon find their own lives in danger. High Crimes was adapted from Joseph Finder's novel by the husband and wife screenwriting team of Yuri Zeltser and Cary Bickley. The film was directed by Carl Franklin (One False Move), and co-stars Amanda Peet and Adam Scott. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi

Flixster Users

54% liked it

37,773 ratings

Critics

31% liked it

132 critics

PG-13, 1 hr. 55 min.

Directed by: Carl Franklin

Release Date: April 5, 2002

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DVD Release Date: August 27, 2002

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Stats: 796 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (796)

  • SirPant
    March 29, 2012
    SirPant
    At its core, High Crimes has an interesting story to tell. Unfortunately it tells it badly and is full of unnecessary characters, plot twists, action, etc. A good thriller should be thrilling and High Crimes is pretty far from Thrilling. Carl Franklin experiments with different s... read moretyles of editing (at least in the first 20 minutes or so) that serve no purpose at all, he adds pointless and irritating characters like Jackie (played by the pointless and irritating Amanda Peet), spends next to no time on character development (Give the bad guy a scar over his face, just so people know he's the bad guy) and in the end, you couldn't give a hoot if Jim Caviezel's character is guilty or not. Also, if you're going to advertise a film as a 'Courtroom drama' you might want to have more than 10 minutes worth of courtroom footage. Morgan Freeman is the only reason I kept watching, not because he's particularly good in it but because he's likable. I would say this film is instantly forgettable but I think it may be too bad for it not to be remembered.
  • FiLmCrAzY
    December 2, 2007
    FiLmCrAzY
    really good interesting and surprising twist
  • 76Majikat
    November 2, 2007
    76Majikat
    I like to think that my film ratings are aimed at great performances, storyline etc, rather than how good looking a person is, which is why this film gets a 3. It was an ok film, with ok performances and an ok storyline.

    The reason I say this is because if I had such a thing ... read moreas a list of good looking actors, then my guess would be, Jim Caviezel would be at the top.

    VERDICT: Watchable, but forgetable
  • thmtsang
    August 3, 2007
    thmtsang
    Ashley always plays the victim and does it very well. Great cast. Story about a husband who is accused of murder and his wife defends him in court. It has a twist though.
  • Deano78
    June 18, 2007
    Deano78
    A good military, court room drama with a strong cast.
  • deano
    February 25, 2007
    deano
    An okay legal drama that mates A Few Good Men with Jagged Edge.
  • mrbungle7821
    February 24, 2006
    mrbungle7821
    [font=Arial][color=darkred]The last film Ashley Judd starred alongside Morgan Freeman was 1997?s ?Kiss the Girls,? a laughably bad serial killer potboiler that solidified Judd as a rising star. Now five years have passed and while Judd remains a top female actress (at least looks... read more wise) her choices involving Freeman continue to disappoint. Maybe he?s bad peer pressure.[/color][/font]

    [font=Arial][color=darkred]Judd is a hot-shot attorney (is there any other kind in the movies?) happily married to retired military man Ronald Chapman (Jim Caviezel). As they walk merrily from holiday shopping arm-in-arm they are besieged by a police sting and Ron is hauled away. An angry Judd learns that the military is charging her husband with massacring civilians in a brief engagement in El Salvador in the 1980s. Judd is determined to prove her hubby?s innocence and contacts the wily and aged defense lawyer Charlie Grimes (Freeman). And, you guessed it, he?s a crafty ole? dog that doesn?t ?play by all the rules.? So they team up and try to trump the military court and endless shadowy figures behind the scenes.[/color][/font]

    [font=Arial][color=darkred]The killing point for ?High Crimes? is that the movie has a giant black hole of a plot that keeps expanding and sucking more inside. There are more subplots than you can shake a stick at, that is, if you?re one of those people that shake sticks at movies. Also included in the whole convoluted mess is an appointed defense attorney (Adam Scott), Judd?s sister (Amanda Peet) who moves in on base, Bruce Davison as a general looking to hide some things, a distrusting former friend of Ron?s, and even in the most far-fetched way a shady character who just happens to have been a boy who witnessed the El Salvador massacre.[/color][/font]

    [font=Arial][color=darkred]With ?High Crimes? the film keeps twisting and turning and dropping red herrings, but there?s much too much going on and too little of it mattering. It seems like the film embodies a shark, afraid that if it stops moving it will die.[/color][/font]

    [font=Arial][color=darkred]Director Carl Franklin has officially failed to deliver on whatever promise he showed with his earlier films ?Devil in a Blue Dress? and ?One False Move?. He mines the material as far as he can but seems uncertain as to where this large revolving tale is going. Inconsistencies and logic loop holes abound. ?High Crimes? seems exactly like one of those movies where the book was so good but then they lost so much of its feel during the translation of mediums.[/color][/font]

    [font=Arial][color=darkred]Judd and Freeman do credible jobs and have a fairly sparkling chemistry between them; however, this is not a movie either will place at the top of their acting oeuvre. Her scenes in the court room as the strong willed woman give about all the characterization that she gets in the film. Freeman remains solid, despite being aloof for most of his screen time.[/color][/font]

    [font=Arial][color=darkred]?High Crimes? is like a pulpy formulaic puff piece that keeps squirming and writhing until the lights in the theater go back up. It may be harmless but it?s also joyless. But at least, for now, it stops Freeman from doing another serial killer movie. For now?[/color][/font]

    [font=Arial][color=darkred]Nate's Grade: C[/color][/font]
  • xxdebxx
    January 16, 2010
    xxdebxx
    High Crimes follows the struggle of attorney Claire Kubik, played by Ashley Judd, to exonerate her husband, played by James Caviezel, who has been charged with the murder of innocent people that supposedly happened during a covert operation fifteen years earlier. Jim Caviezel was... read more magnificent and shone in his role here.... could weep tenderly on cue and be the affectionate husband to his wife who desperately wants a child, and be the perfect criminal to the extent of even passing a lie detector test when he was presumed guilty.

    Claire defends her husband in the court case with the help of another lawyer, Charles Grimes (Morgan Freeman).They played off each other perfectly and Amanda Peet was very watchable in her underwritten role.
    Despite its flaws, I was entertained and engrossed by the intriguing storyline but the final twist unfortunately became all too evident because the entire movie tried to convince us otherwise.
  • Nutterjr
    November 25, 2007
    Nutterjr
    Judd and Freeman have delivered a whole lot better than this...
  • HenrikSchunk
    March 22, 2010
    HenrikSchunk
    I lost track of how many times Morgan Freeman played the same role in different m ovies. The good-hearted renegade policeman or lawyer or whatnot whose streetwise ways of dealing with with problems make the world a better place. In this case, I do not really mind Freeman being ty... read morepecast because he fills the stereotype well and adds wamrth and humanity to the movies. Yet, in some cases the films are unbalanced because the rest of the cast cannot hold their ends up. High Crimes suffers from an incredibly weak cast (except Freeman). While Ashley Judd is not the worst actor, her character is very superficial and you can tell that the script is written by a bloke because no woman like here exists in the world, shallow. The axis of the film, the accused, is James Cavaziel and he is a pain in the eye to see acting and he really breaks this movie, because I do not really care what happens to him. The story is simple and resemblent of "A Few Good Men" without the subtleness and tension, without the quality if you want to put it that way. The characters are all onedimensional and the bad guys look bad and the good guys look good, like an old western, but not in a good way. You can smell the twist from miles away so the climax is more or less a anti-climax. All this and many story inconsistencies make this a below average thrilles that is poorly executed as well. Can be missed.

    HX

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Critic Reviews

Robert Denerstein
August 9, 2002
Robert Denerstein, Denver Rocky Mountain News

Comes off more like a misdemeanor, a flat, unconvincing drama that never catches fire.

Michael Wilmington
July 20, 2002
Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune

A well-mounted and well-acted suspense movie that, thanks to its illogical script, falls off a cliff midway through. Full Review

Peter Rainer
April 14, 2002
Peter Rainer, New York Magazine

Carl Franklin directs smoothly, but except for Freeman, the theatrics are pretty pro forma. Full Review

Nick Rutigliano
April 9, 2002
Nick Rutigliano, Village Voice

Judd ... eyebrow-cocks her way through Carl Franklin's witless High Crimes. Full Review

Richard Roeper
April 8, 2002
Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper

In a movie like this, if you're not surprised, if you know what's going to happen and you can figure out everything then it ultimately falls flat and that's why it doesn't work for me. Full Review

James Berardinelli
April 7, 2002
James Berardinelli, ReelViews

Stale and clichéd to a fault. Full Review

Michael O'Sullivan
April 5, 2002
Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post

The fare is all on the standard menu, but it goes down well just the same. Full Review

Stephen Hunter
April 5, 2002
Stephen Hunter, Washington Post

Isn't worth the crayons it took to write the script. Full Review

Peter Howell
April 5, 2002
Peter Howell, Toronto Star

There ought to be a law against what they do to Morgan Freeman in High Crimes. Full Review

Mick LaSalle
April 5, 2002
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

High Crimes has some faults, but it manages to keep its audience either angry or jumpy from start to finish. Full Review

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  • What movie stared Ashley Judd, as well as Morgan Freeman?? Morgan Freeman was a drunk, and Ashley Judd was a lawyer.  Answer »
  • name that actor or actress who is a killer in the movie high crimes 2002?????  Answer »
  • There are two movies starring Morgan Freeman & Ashley Judd... Those are:  Answer »
  • Which actress can you associate with the following films? -Kiss the Girls -Someone like you -High Crimes -Double Jeopardy  Answer »
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