Customer Reviews

Just Cause (Keepcase)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

There's more than the alligators lurking in the swamplands of the Everglades in this thriller. It's hard to know who to trust as a Harvard law proffessor(Sean Connery) who hasn't even had a case in 25 years, reopens one of a convicted killer(Blair Underwood) in Florida. There is evidence to support that his confession was beat out of him, and the proffessor intends to prove it.
Don't take anything for granted in this chilling mystery as the list of suspects grows. There's the tough lawman(Laurence Fishburne),the psychotic serial killer(Ed Harris) over in the next cell,and you may even suspect the alligators in the swamps for a while. There are many twists and turns that will have you wondering who done it? The prof's wife (Kate Capshaw)is even invovled. Lots of action, lots of gripping suspense to keep you glued to your seat. You wont want to miss a minute of it.
The cast listed above all do marvelous work in this film. But I must also mention that the legendary Ruby Dee makes a superb appearance, as well as Kevin Mccarthy and Hope Lang.
So let's talk about the DVD. Fabulous! Wonderful widescreen picture. The swamps never looked so clear. Colors looked perfect.Nighttime scenes were all perfectly visable. The sound in the Dolby Surround 2.0 was actually very good, probably could have been perfect in the 5.1 with all the action though. Don't look for any special features,this DVD has only the language selection of French.It's a great film to add to the thriller section of you DVD library(even without the extras)
So Look out for those alligators and enjoy.......Laurie

also recommended:Presumed Innocent

Hi..
I don't get why so many people didn't like this movie, and why is there all those negative reviews about the film ?
This film is just great, it has an interesting plot, great acting by all the stars and a good ending.
So don't you guys pay any attention to those negative reviews, this movie has it all.

I personally think that this is one of connery's best movies with an amazing performance by all especially connery !
And the scene where connery's character interviews Harris's character is one of my favourite scenes, quit memorable and thrilling !


This is a must BUY movie and is highly recommended !

Sean Connery stars as Harvard law professor Paul Armstrong in this cunning and twisting story of primeval evil and revenge. Bobby Earl is locked up in prison for the horrific rape and murder of an 11-year old girl in Ochopee, Florida. Bobby Earl's letter, delivered to Armstrong by Bobby Earl's grandmother, pulls the law professor into Florida where he reopens the investigation of the murder. While he's working, discovering how flimsy the evidence was against Bobby Earl, Armstrong is stalked by the two policemen that put the young man away. Tanny Brown, the lead policeman, is convinced that Bobby Earl is guilty, and isn't at all remorse about putting a gun inside the defendant's mouth to exact a confession. Armstrong's investigation leads him back to the prison where Bobby Earl is being held, and to the madman serial killer, Blair Sullivan, who is going to be executed within days. Armstrong meets resistance at every turn, but the surprises are even more daunting. Only days into the case, Armstrong finds out that Bobby Earl was brought up on kidnapping charges before the murder, and that the prosecuting attorney was none other than Armstrong's own wife who urged him to take the case.

Sean Connery is hands-down one of the best actors in the business. Watching him work so effortlessly, yet hitting every nuance and pulling the audience into the story, is poetry in motion. Besides starring as the original James Bond, he's played in dozens of movies, portraying serious roles as well as comic relief. Lawrence Fishburne, Tanny Brown in the movie, is known to most fans as Morpheus in THE MATRIX, but he's done several crime thrillers in addtion to this one, including ALWAYS OUTNUMBERED, HOODLUM, FLED, and DEEP COVER. Ed Harris, who starred in THE ABYSS and THE ROCK, plays deranged serial killer Blair Sullivan. Blair Underwood, L. A. LAW and DEEP IMPACT, plays Bobby Earl.

JUST CAUSE, based on the novel by John Katzenbach, is a slick, speeding bullet of a movie. The pacing is dynamically charged, and the plot twist reveals are staged to set the viewer up for senses-shattering one-two deliveries. The thriller fan will see some of the twists coming, but others will come out of left field yet maintain perfect sense. The ones that are seen coming bring the stomach-turning anxiety of watching a car wreck in motion and being unable to look away. Every character in the movie outside of Paul Armstrong has hidden depths and agendas of his and her own that play out against the main plot. Sean Connery, as always, delivers an outstanding performance. Fishburne leaves the impression that he could have been Tanny Brown had life gone differently for him. Blair Underwood plays Bobby Earl to a T, coming across as a guy who's just been unlucky in life. But the biggest gut-churning experience of the film is Ed Harris' portrayal of Blair Sullivan, which guarantees some uneasy moments long after the movie is over.

The only real fault in the movie is the recovery of the missing murder weapon after eight years. Armstrong looks for the knife himself after Tanny Brown tells him he's on a wild goose chase. Yet Tanny comes with him and they ultimately recover the blade. Instead of calling in a crime scene investigation, as most viewers know would have to be done, Tanny takes the weapon into custody himself. Also, follow up DNA work would have been nice to see, to further confirm the evidence. With all the DVD packaging that's coming out these days, behind-the-scenes featurettes or interviews with Connery or the other actors would have been a natural. DVD fans have come to expect these things and not having them on JUST CAUSE was a bit of a disappointment.

JUST CAUSE is a fabulous movie and a definite must for thriller fans. The addition of Sean Connery and the sterling performance by Ed Harris are icing on the cake. Anyone who enjoyed SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, L. A. CONFIDENTIAL, or THE USUAL SUSPECTS will also enjoy this DVD.

Eight years ago, Bobby Earl (Blair Underwood) was sentenced to death for killing a little girl. His 'confession' was extracted in about the most brutal manner I think they allowed on film at that time. Officer Tanny Brown (Laurence Fishburne) plays the cool Black Southern cop who took that confession.

Just as Bobby is about to die Evangeline Earl (Ruby Dee) contacts Paul Armstrong (Sean Connery) an opponent of the death penalty and retired lawyer, for help. Armstrong takes the case, despite strong misgivings and comes to the Southern town where Earl once lived.

He encounters anger and opposition. Understandable, since the murdered little girl was very popular and a friend of Tanny Brown's young daughter as well.

He goes to the prison to meet Bobby Earl and Blair Sullivan (Ed Harris), a serial killing psychopath. The plot twists as both men work Armstrong for their own purposes.

I've seen "Just Cause" several times and each one, I see more. Moreover, the hair still rises on the back of my neck when I watch. It's a strong story, well acted, and suspenseful. "Just Cause" will leave you thinking for days to come.

Rebecca Kyle, February 2009

I remember the night I first watched this movie. I rented it at the Video Shop, without much enthusiasm & at the insistence of my roommate. Well, let me tell you, this Thriller is exactly that..THRILLING!! Every turn and twist imaginable is in this movie. Did he or didn't he kill that little girl? I was on the edge of my seat for most of the movie. Ed Harris is terrific as well as Sean Connery, who just keeps getting better with age. I recommend BUYING this movie. I have watched it about 4 or 5 times now and my heart races each and every time. [....]

For the first 75 or so minutes, Just Cause is solid movie entertainment. It features a rather unoriginal premise, about a black man accused of raping and murdering a young white girl and is sentenced to death row, but is intriguing, nonetheless. Sean Connery plays Paul Armstrong, the man the accused killer-Bobby Earl-convinces to help find the man truly responsible.

Just Cause is an always watchable thriller, and there small plot twists turns along the way. At the 75 minute mark is the movie's big revelation, which is actually a bit more surprising than I thought it would be. But the movie goes downhill from there, resulting in a mess of car chases and fistfights. Still, it's well worth watching for those first 75 or so minutes.

Just Cause / 085391362326

*Spoilers*

I bought this movie on speculation, assuming that anything involving both Sean Connery and Laurence Fishburne couldn't possibly go wrong, but it turns out I was underestimating the power of a horrible, didactic plot.

The movie starts out promisingly enough, with Connery in the role of a crusading law professor, out to right all the injustices of our death penalty driven legal system, and with Fishburne playing out the role of the dirty cop who breaks all the rules in order to take down the criminal - even if the 'criminal' is really innocent and the rules are broken in order to egregiously railroad the wrong man for a horrible crime.

This is the stuff of good drama, and really the film-makers should have been satisfied with this. But, no, everything has to have a 'twist' these days, so after Connery uses his legal kung fu to break our innocent, railroaded victim out of jail, there's still a good 45 minutes left in the movie, so you just know that can't be the end of it. Indeed, somewhere it is written that if anyone is freed from prison more than 30 minutes before the movie ends, then they will inevitably be left holding the Whodunit bag at the end of the film (conversely, if anyone is sent to prison with 30 minutes remaining, they're either the wrong guy for the crime, or just a flunky for the "real" mastermind).

Sure enough, all hell breaks loose immediately after judicial release, and Connery comes to realize what Fishburne was smart enough to clue in on an hour ago - the innocent jailbird isn't so innocent after all, and Fishburne was just doing what was necessary ("just cause", get it?) in order to put a dangerous man behind bars. After being bloodied in battle, our pansy professor becomes a man, and presumably comes to realize that sometimes you have to brutally force a confession out of a dangerous man in order to protect all the innocent women and children of the world.

Although I very much doubt that it was intentional, this movie eloquently drives home the point of why, exactly, police officers close to the victim (as Fishburne's character was in this case) should not take the lead on their cases. Despite the apparent implication that Fishburne's character had "just cause" to mistreat the suspect in the manner that he did, and to railroad over the proper legal process, Fishburne's character is the *real* villain here - because his reckless, irresponsible flaunting of the law and due legal process guaranteed that a dangerous man would be released again, to prey on the public until another 'chance' to lock him away properly appeared. We do not, thankfully, have a legal system based on the psychic abilities of impassioned police officers, and the rights of all citizens are threatened whenever anyone takes the law into their own hands by brutalizing suspects in police custody.

Soapbox aside, much of this movie is ridiculous or out-right silly. Another 'twist' at the end is so beyond ridiculous that it deserves mention - the criminal's long-standing vendetta against Connery's wife is because when she locked him up without cause as a hot-shot prosecutor in her youth, he was castrated during his stay as a guest of the state. Now, considering that he was later *imprisoned* by the same state on a rape charge, you'd think that he might - just *might* - have attempted to use that little fact at trial to lessen suspicion on him. But that would have ruined the movie twist, so we can't have that.

~ Ana Mardoll

Every aspect of this entailed thriller is very well made. This is not your run-of-the-mill Hitchcock ripof, this is a murder mystery, that has an originality you rarely see anymore. From the violent opening scene, to the outstanding actorial performance by Ed Harris, This is a great film. You could compare the performance by Ed Haris, to that of Jack Nicholson in, THE SHINING, its that good!. Each actor is right for his/her part, and there performances are impecable. The U turns that this movie takes are what makes it entertaining to watch over and over. It so keeps you guessing what's going to happen, especially in the middle of the film, after the major court scene, where the movie seems to be over, its only just begun. The storyline speeds from one mans' freedom, to grafic images in a seemingly christian home, to the early execution of an unlikley propriator. This is an all around great, film and I strongly recomend 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.)

Initially intrigued by this movie's numerous plot twists, it's only in retrospect that I now see the movie's numerous flaws that prevent it from being a top notch movie. Sean Connery does well in his role as a Harvard law professor asked to prove a death row inmate's innocence. Seems his confession came about as a result of a violent coercion from the town's two law officers. Throw in a subplot involving Connery's lawyer wife, a demented Hannibal Lechter-like serial killer, and lots of confusion about the innocence or guilt of both the accused and/or the law officer. The movie gives itself away with the quick vindication of the accused; you know something is going on, or the movie would have been over. The main problem in the end, is that we never really understand exactly why the killer chose to kill this little girl, and just how far someone would go to exact revenge. You can't really fault the cast, though: Kate Capshaw as the wife does well with what little she is given to do; Laurence Fishburne is appropriately smarmy and unlikeable; Ed Harris has a field day as the demented serial killer; and we even get glorious "cameos" from future Oscar hopeful Scarlett Johanson; George Plimpton, Chris Sarandon, Daniel J. Travanti, Hope Lange, Ned Beatty and Kevin McCarthy. It's the movie's own self righteousness and improbability that ultimately brings it down to something you may enjoy while watching, but it leaves a bitter aftertaste.