Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: High Crimes (2002)

5/18/2023

High Crimes (2002) - Unremarkable paranoia military thriller

♥♥♥

The two big stars stand weirdly close together on this questionable poster for Carl Franklin's High Crimes

Claire is a successful young attorney, but when her military husband is accused of a mass murder in El Salvador, she is forced to consider the possibility that she might be living with a homicidal liar.

High Crimes is written by Yuri Zeltser (The Circle (2005)) and Grace Cary Bickley (The Gun in Betty Lou's Handbag (1992)), adapting the same-titled 1998 novel by Joesph Finder (The Zero Hour (1996)), and directed by Carl Franklin (Nowhere to Run (1989)).

High-polished, formulaic Hollywood fare here, which lives especially due to its stars; mainly the sympathetic Ashley Judd (Divergent (2014)); Morgan Freeman (The Comeback Trail (2020)) is highly convincing as a drunk and Jim Caviezel (Transit (2012)) as the dubious husband.

The film in its best sequences instills the feeling in the audience of mistrusting a very cynical liar in one's closest surroundings. High Crimes is superficial but entertaining.

Carl Franklin: House of Cards - season 2 (2014, VoD) - More ruthless power plays from Willimon and Co.

Watch a 3-minute clip from the film here

Cost: 42 mil. $

Box office: 63.7 mil. $

= Big flop (returned 1.51 times its cost)

[High Crimes premiered 3 April (USA) and runs 115 minutes. Shooting took place from November 2000 - March 2001 in Mexico and California, including in San Francisco. The film opened #2, behind holdover hit Panic Room, to a 14 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it left the top 5 in its 2nd weekend and grossed 41.5 mil. $ (65.1 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Spain with 4.5 mil. $ (7 %) and Mexico with 2 mil. $ (3.1 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a 3/4 star review, translating to a notch over this one. Franklin returned with Out of Time (2003). Judd returned in Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002); Freeman in The Sum of All Fears (2002). High Crimes is rotten at 30 % with a 5.0/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

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Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

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Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

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5/18/2023

High Crimes (2002) - Unremarkable paranoia military thriller

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