High Crimes

Ashley Judd, a defense attorney, finds out the man she has been married to for over a decade is an ex-marine wanted for mass murder in El Salvador. It is a pretty rude awakening, considering the first she hears of it is when they are arrested in a big take-down by FBI storm troopers. He claims he didn’t do it. She decides to defend him.

But she doesn’t know much about the court martial system. The man she convinces to help her is Morgan Freeman, an ex-military lawyer who tells her right off the bat that “Military justice is to justice like military music is to music.” I happen to be a fan of march music, having played in my high school band, but I understand what he’s talking about. Military trials are even more likely to be hamstrung by bogus claims of “national security,” the biggest refuge for fuckups in the history of our country, than civilian courts. Add to that the fact that the man hubby (Jim Caviezel) claims did the actual killing is the chief aide to a high-ranking, Medal-of-Honor-winning general with a lot of pull back in the Pentagon, and you can see that the deck is badly stacked against the defense. But you wouldn’t have much of a story if it wasn’t, right? She battles gamely onward in the face of intimidation, fraud, and actual murder attempts. And of course there is a trick ending … so I have to stop there. It was all competently done, worth watching but nothing really special.