High Crimes

It's the little family that could in a suspense thriller that wanted to be. Ashley Judd, aka the brunette version of the always cute and perky Meg Ryan, stars as the successful lawyer who is trying to get pregnant until her sperm-donating husband (James Caviezel) is arrested for slaughtering nine innocent victims while in active duty overseas with the Marine Corps years ago. But the soft-spined wifee-poo believes the elaborate conspiracy theory defense spewed by the accused and so decides to use her feisty flare in the military court, alongside the Doogie Howser-of-the-law and a comic relief renegade-drunken-attorney sporting a Don King "do" (Morgan Freeman). This tolerable adaptation of Joseph Finder's novel is all fine and dandy until director Carl Franklin repeatedly teases us with potential horror sequences that never pan out, kind of like M.C. Hammer's career.