Just Cause (Snap Case) |  | Director: Arne Glimcher
Actors: Sean Connery, Laurence Fishburne, Kate Capshaw, Blair Underwood
Studio: Warner Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $12.98
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Rating:  32 reviews
Sales Rank: 9240
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 102 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.1 x 0.6
MPN: D13623D
ISBN: 0790740796
UPC: 085391362326
EAN: 9780790740799
ASIN: 0790740796
Theatrical Release Date: February 17, 1995
Release Date: June 22, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
A law professor is drawn into appealing the case of a deathrow inmate who may have been railroaded into a conviction by vindictive cops.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 8-FEB-2005
Media Type: DVD
Amazon.com
Just Cause is a film that relies on phony plot twists and steals openly from any other thriller that it can remember. If there was a drinking game requiring players to drink during every cinematic "homage," you'd be tanked after Just Cause's first 45 minutes. Take one case of racial injustice, place it in an exotic, exquisitely photographed location (the Florida Everglades), and bring in an outsider, played by a bankable star, to save the day. Make sure nothing appears as it seems. Add a couple of plot twists, some over-the-top character actors (Ed Harris, shamelessly riffing on Hannibal Lecter), stir, and serve. The big name in this case is Sean Connery, who plays a Harvard law professor summoned to the swamps by an apparently innocent death row inmate (Blair Underwood), who swears he didn't rape and kill that 11-year-old girl. He says he confessed because maverick psycho-cop Tanny Brown (Laurence Fishburne) made him play a solo game of Russian roulette. He says his Serial-killer neighbor on death row (Harris) committed the crime. Connery buys it, the audience buys it, and how could they not? Director Arne Glimcher (who made the lackluster Mambo Kings) coerces everyone with simplistic plot manipulations. Characters are given no depth, and the actors are pawns moved about like pieces on a Clue gameboard. --Dave McCoy
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 32
 Derivative January 5, 2010
Ana Mardoll (United States)
Just Cause / 085391362326
*Spoilers*
I bought this movie on speculation, assuming that anything involving both Sean Connery and Laurence Fishburne couldn't possibly go wrong, but it turns out I was underestimating the power of a horrible, didactic plot.
The movie starts out promisingly enough, with Connery in the role of a crusading law professor, out to right all the injustices of our death penalty driven legal system, and with Fishburne playing out the role of the dirty cop who breaks all the rules in order to take down the criminal - even if the 'criminal' is really innocent and the rules are broken in order to egregiously railroad the wrong man for a horrible crime.
This is the stuff of good drama, and really the film-makers should have been satisfied with this. But, no, everything has to have a 'twist' these days, so after Connery uses his legal kung fu to break our innocent, railroaded victim out of jail, there's still a good 45 minutes left in the movie, so you just know that can't be the end of it. Indeed, somewhere it is written that if anyone is freed from prison more than 30 minutes before the movie ends, then they will inevitably be left holding the Whodunit bag at the end of the film (conversely, if anyone is sent to prison with 30 minutes remaining, they're either the wrong guy for the crime, or just a flunky for the "real" mastermind).
Sure enough, all hell breaks loose immediately after judicial release, and Connery comes to realize what Fishburne was smart enough to clue in on an hour ago - the innocent jailbird isn't so innocent after all, and Fishburne was just doing what was necessary ("just cause", get it?) in order to put a dangerous man behind bars. After being bloodied in battle, our pansy professor becomes a man, and presumably comes to realize that sometimes you have to brutally force a confession out of a dangerous man in order to protect all the innocent women and children of the world.
Although I very much doubt that it was intentional, this movie eloquently drives home the point of why, exactly, police officers close to the victim (as Fishburne's character was in this case) should not take the lead on their cases. Despite the apparent implication that Fishburne's character had "just cause" to mistreat the suspect in the manner that he did, and to railroad over the proper legal process, Fishburne's character is the *real* villain here - because his reckless, irresponsible flaunting of the law and due legal process guaranteed that a dangerous man would be released again, to prey on the public until another 'chance' to lock him away properly appeared. We do not, thankfully, have a legal system based on the psychic abilities of impassioned police officers, and the rights of all citizens are threatened whenever anyone takes the law into their own hands by brutalizing suspects in police custody.
Soapbox aside, much of this movie is ridiculous or out-right silly. Another 'twist' at the end is so beyond ridiculous that it deserves mention - the criminal's long-standing vendetta against Connery's wife is because when she locked him up without cause as a hot-shot prosecutor in her youth, he was castrated during his stay as a guest of the state. Now, considering that he was later *imprisoned* by the same state on a rape charge, you'd think that he might - just *might* - have attempted to use that little fact at trial to lessen suspicion on him. But that would have ruined the movie twist, so we can't have that.
~ Ana Mardoll
 SEAN CONNERY AND OTHERS November 13, 2009
drkhimxz (Freehold, NJ, USA)
Sean Connery does his customary highly professional job as the Harvard Law professor who is called in to review the case of a man convicted of murder, sentenced to death eight years previously. The sentence is to be carried out in the near future. In a flashback we are all made aware of the evidence which makes his confession and conviction invalid. Laurence Fishburne, as the sheriff and one of the interrogators in the eliciting of the confession is almost stereotypically over the top, as is his deputy. In fact, while the remainder of the cast work competently, only Blaire Underwood has a chance to look good as the convicted killer.
While the film is reminiscent of others in the genre, Connery is so good as the law professor investigating the case, that he holds the production together. Most should find it sufficiently diverting to overlook flaws and key in on the puzzle and the lead characters. A decent though not excellent film.
Sean Connery November 12, 2009
Paul Garland (El Paso, Texas USA)
I really like Sean Connery and I believe to my depths in the fight against racial opression.
 Unwatchable and not worth spending a cent on! September 27, 2009
Golum (New Orleans)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Don't waste your time!
This movie is terrible- Sean tries to save it but unlike most of his work, this movie has virtually nothing to recommend it! The only good thing is a few [less then 5] minutes of prety everglade pictures and a feisty grandma!
Do not waste your time with this clunker!!!
I found myself trying to turn it off several times and now strongly wish I'd followed those impulses as I feel as it I wasted almost 2 hours of my life. The first two thirds of the movie is spent with one of the most unrealistic view of the judicial system that Ive had the misfortune of seeing recently. Frankly, Law and Order is more realistic and often has a better plot and better writing!
It makes presumptions that make it look easy to get out of jail when we know its not. The last third is spent wishing the bad guy would just win so you can get to the end. There is no surprise at where this movie takes you and it must have been written by a neo-nazi or white supremacist.
The bad guys motive is so undeveloped that it put this movie into the racist catalog. Is this perhaps an understandable revenge[against a character so unsympathetic I was rooting for it's death]? Or was the motive a psycho-serial killing? The answer: both- is what makes this a truly rancid turkey!
 One of the best stories and best casts I've ever seen February 9, 2009
R. Kyle (USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Eight years ago, Bobby Earl (Blair Underwood) was sentenced to death for killing a little girl. His 'confession' was extracted in about the most brutal manner I think they allowed on film at that time. Officer Tanny Brown (Laurence Fishburne) plays the cool Black Southern cop who took that confession.
Just as Bobby is about to die Evangeline Earl (Ruby Dee) contacts Paul Armstrong (Sean Connery) an opponent of the death penalty and retired lawyer, for help. Armstrong takes the case, despite strong misgivings and comes to the Southern town where Earl once lived.
He encounters anger and opposition. Understandable, since the murdered little girl was very popular and a friend of Tanny Brown's young daughter as well.
He goes to the prison to meet Bobby Earl and Blair Sullivan (Ed Harris), a serial killing psychopath. The plot twists as both men work Armstrong for their own purposes.
I've seen "Just Cause" several times and each one, I see more. Moreover, the hair still rises on the back of my neck when I watch. It's a strong story, well acted, and suspenseful. "Just Cause" will leave you thinking for days to come.
Rebecca Kyle, February 2009
Showing reviews 1-5 of 32
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