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Rating:  - It begins with a formula for predictability, but then shifts into an unpredictable thriller
This movie has all the components of a formulaic tale about a black man unjustly arrested for the murder of a young white girl. A college educated black man in a small town in Florida is arrested when a young white girl is raped and brutally murdered. The local sheriff and his deputy beat him for 22 hours and extort a confession out of him. The only unusual difference is that while the deputy is white, the sheriff is black.
Sean Connery plays a Harvard Law professor who is adamantly opposed to the death penalty and he is introduced taking that position in a debate. The black man's grandmother has traveled up from Florida to plead with Connery to take her grandson's case before he is executed. After being shamed by his ex-prosecutor wife, Connery agrees to look into it. Once there, he finds several inconsistencies in the evidence, but time and again he encounters people who strongly and sometimes physically encourage him to let matters lie. The attorney who defended the black man openly admits to Connery that he lost business for defending the man and that he would have probably had to have left town if he had achieved an acquittal.
Connery persists and gets what he feels is a just verdict, which only begins the development of the true story, which takes many convoluted twists. These gyrations will keep your mind racing as you try to anticipate what will be the next movement.
As always, Sean Connery turns in an excellent performance. However, the stars of the movie are Lawrence Fishburne as the sheriff and Ed Harris as a deranged serial murder. Harris is spectacular as a man who is truly criminally insane, yet can when necessary be very rational and calculating. I enjoyed the movie, Connery avoided slipping into any dramatic hero persona; I thought he played the role a little too passively. However, that is just my experience is seeing him in the hero's role. In nearly every way he responded as a Harvard Law professor would.
Rating: - A Compelling Thriller
On the back of the case of this movie, it says that it's the best thriller since Silence of The Lambs; while I don't agree with that statement, Just Cause was a great thriller.
The first thing we think when a young black man is hauled to the local precinct for interrogation is police brutality. After all, sheriff Tanny Brown, and police officer Wilcox, show no mercy in beating Bobby Earl, who is accused of killing a young white girl. We feel horrified by what the officers do to the prisoner.
Then, the scene changes. Evangeline, Bobby Earl's grandmother is sent north to ask a distinguished Harvard professor, a retired lawyer, the young man wants Paul Armstrong to defend him. She old woman is convincing enough for Armstrong to take a look at the case. He is also convinced of the young man's innocence.
Things are not exactly what we thought they were. When Blair Sullivan, a man who is serving time in the same facility as Bobby Earl, comes forward to tell about how he is connected to the young girl's murder, and changes the dynamics of the case. The way it plays in the movie, it serves to confuse the viewer and distract Armstrong from arriving at the truth.
This thriller is made enjoyable by Sean Connery, who plays Armstrong. Laurence Fishburne, an intense actor, makes a fine impression as the Sheriff who, as far as we can see, is guilty of abusing his prisoner. Ed Harris has a wonderful opportunity to show why he is one of our best actors. Blair Underwood, Kate Capshaw, Ruby Dee and the young Scarlett Johansson are seen in supporting roles.
The film, even with its faults, will not disappoint.
Rating: - Let alligators clean the plate
It could have been an excellent film if it had not turned a psychopath into a vengeful and spiteful singleminded human robot. The starting point was good. The man who had been convicted of a horrible crime and sentenced to die on the electric chair calls for the help of a Harvard anti-death-penalty law professor. He accepts under pressure from his wife who forgets to tell her husband something important. He discovers that justice in Florida means to manage to get convicted and sentenced to death someone whose guilt you are deeply convinced of, no matter what the evidence maybe and how illegal the procedure to get a confession had been. The real truth is going to emerge at the end. It is sordid and squalid and everything is nothing but a series of nasty consequences after the nasty first step on the road to dereliction and alienation. Though the film resembles a lot "Silence of the Lambs" it could have been perfect if they had not tried to turn it into a melodramatic mish-mash at the end. It is a lot more difficult to finish up a film than to start it. But it could have been at least as good as Seven but it wasn't. Yet it is a good thriller up to the last five minutes. One question though survives in our minds: what racial message is contained in this film, the main culprit being a black man? Is the series of crimes the proof that crime is inevitable as soon as it frinds some kind of a starting point? Yet who starts the whole series? Is a black man supposed to be seen as guilty as soon as we come across him because he is black and nothing else? And the black cop is definitely not better than the black criminal. Can we entrust police work to a black man? Etc. It is a shame in a way that the film is not clear on the racial question.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, Universit? Paris Dauphine, Universit? Paris I Panth?on Sorbonne
Rating:  - Simplistic, & Proud of It.
I don't expect much from movies, and am seldom disappointed. Just Cause gave me much more than I expected because I thought it was over before it ended. It had petered out into a smelly Everglades methane swamp of political correctness, and I thought it was all over but the discreditable credits. Then Just Cause really began. It want from swamp gas to a film that's as sharp as a shiv.
Connery and Fishburne are good in both parts of the movie, smelly beginning and incisive end. Ed Harris's performance, however, is over the top and literally off the wall. It's a beautiful thing. (I'm usually offended that Hollywood tricks out its sickest sickos with the accoutrements of Christianity, something Hollywood knows it can get away with because Christians are too polite to riot & 'necklace' producers, directors, and actors. Having the Harris character declaim from the Book of Job, though, makes sense. It's ugly but honest, rather like Just Cause.)
Rating:  - Unjust Cause?
Not the best from either actor. Plot a bit thin but great for watching at 3a.m.
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