Just Cause (film)
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| Directed by | Arne Glimcher |
| Produced by | Arne Glimcher Steve Perry Lee Rich |
| Written by | Jeb Stuart Peter Stone |
| Starring | Sean Connery Laurence Fishburne Kate Capshaw Blair Underwood Ed Harris |
| Music by | James Newton Howard |
| Cinematography | Lajos Koltai |
| Edited by | William M. Anderson Armen Minasian |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures |
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Release dates
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Running time
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102 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $27 million |
| Box office | $36,853,222 |
Just Cause is a 1995 suspense crime thriller film directed by Arne Glimcher and starring Sean Connery and Laurence Fishburne. It is based on John Katzenbach's novel of the same name.
Plot
Paul Armstrong (Sean Connery), a liberal Harvard professor opposed to capital punishment, is persuaded to go to Florida, to investigate the conviction of Bobby Earl Ferguson (Blair Underwood) for murder. Ferguson, a former Cornell University student, is a highly intelligent, charming, and articulate black man who was convicted of raping and murdering a young white girl. Armstrong must save him from being executed in the electric chair. Ferguson tells Armstrong that he was tortured by two police detectives to get a confession. As Armstrong digs deeper into the case, he discovers that Tanny Brown (Laurence Fishburne), the chief detective on the case, did indeed coerce Ferguson's confession.
The plot thickens when Ferguson tells the professor that the murder was actually committed by Blair Sullivan (Ed Harris), a serial killer awaiting execution, who later reveals the location of the weapon used to kill the girl. When Armstrong discovers the weapon, Brown tries to threaten him into abandoning the investigation. (It is revealed that the murdered girl was Brown's daughter's best friend.) Ferguson gets a re-trial and is freed from prison. Subsequently, the governor signs Sullivan's death warrant.
Armstrong then receives a call from Sullivan, who says he has a final clue for him, but first asks him to visit his parents and tell them he said goodbye. Armstrong is shocked to find the butchered bodies of Sullivan's parents, and returns demanding an explanation before telling Sullivan what he saw. Sullivan gloats that he and Ferguson struck a deal: Ferguson would kill Sullivan's parents in exchange for freedom, while Sullivan would claim responsibility for the girl's murder, which Ferguson did in fact commit. Armstrong has the last laugh by lying to Sullivan that his parents were alive and that they "forgive him". Sullivan becomes furious and resists the guards taking him to the electric chair where he is executed.
Armstrong and Brown go after Ferguson, whose motive for everything is a desire for revenge on Armstrong's wife (Kate Capshaw); she was the prosecutor against him in a previous rape trial which, while thrown out of court on a technicality, resulted in him being brutalized and castrated in jail, as well as being kicked out of Cornell, robbing him of any chance of a future. Ferguson plans to murder Armstrong's wife and daughter (Scarlett Johansson) and then disappear, but Armstrong and Brown come to the rescue. They kill Ferguson and save Armstrong's family.
Cast
- Sean Connery – Paul Armstrong
- Laurence Fishburne – Sheriff Tanny Brown
- Kate Capshaw – Laurie Prentiss Armstrong
- Blair Underwood – Bobby Earl Ferguson
- Ed Harris – Blair Sullivan
- Christopher Murray – Detective T. J. Wilcox
- Ruby Dee – Evangeline
- Scarlett Johansson – Katie Armstrong
- Daniel J. Travanti – Warden
- Ned Beatty – McNair
- Kevin McCarthy – Phil Prentiss
Reception
Critical
Unlike Glimcher's previous film, The Mambo Kings, Just Cause received mostly negative reviews,[1][2][3] with a "Rotten" 22% rating on Rotten Tomatoes [4] and an average score of 6.2 on The Internet Movie Database.
Box office
The movie debuted with moderate success.[5]
References
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- ↑ http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/just_cause/
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