Just Cause (film)

Just Cause
Directed by Arne Glimcher
Produced by Arne Glimcher
Steve Perry
Lee Rich
Written by Jeb Stuart
Peter Stone
Starring
Music by James Newton Howard
Cinematography Lajos Koltai
Edited by William M. Anderson
Armen Minasian
Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures
Release dates
  • February 17, 1995 (1995-02-17)
Running time
 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 receives a call from Sullivan, who says he has a final clue to share, but first wants Armstrong to visit his (Sullivan's) parents and tell them he said goodbye. Armstrong is shocked to find their butchered bodies. Back at the prison, 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 asks why he was needed for their scheme, and Sullivan replies that was "Bobby Earl's call." Armstrong has the last laugh by lying to Sullivan that his parents were alive and that they "forgive him." Sullivan becomes enraged. He resists the guards taking him to the electric chair, where he is executed.

Armstrong and Brown go after Ferguson, whose motive for everything turns out to be 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. Armstrong and Brown join forces to kill Ferguson and save Armstrong's family.

Cast

Reception

Critical

Unlike Glimcher's previous film, The Mambo Kings, Just Cause received mostly negative reviews,[1][2][3] with a "Rotten" 25% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 28 reviews [4] and an average score of 6.4 on The Internet Movie Database.

Box office

The movie debuted with moderate success.[5]

References

External links

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