The premise of a "blocked" crime novelist visiting actual courtrooms for story ideas and becoming involved in one of the cases personally is an acceptable place for a comedy-thriller to start -- or even, with minor alterations, for a "straight" thriller to start. Where it quickly stops being acceptable is with the hero's donning of a priest's garb in order to gain access to an accused murderess and to volunteer to be her alibi: anything for a story. (The implied disdain here of creative writing as only a form of slightly embellished stenography is borne out by the ensuing samples of the stuff: "Her breasts pressed against him like ripe pomegranates," etc. It is borne out as well, or even better, by the overall arrow-in-the-rump level of imagination on display.) And that's only the beginning of the unacceptabilities, most of which revolve around Tom Selleck's over-readiness to play the fool -- a pubescently voice-cracking and virginal fool to boot, an infantilely vulnerable and accident-prone fool, a fool, in short, only a mother could love. This would seem to be, then, a movie exclusively for people who are already convinced he's adorable, and that's the end of it. It would not be a movie for people to come to with an open mind. Paulina Porizkova, James Farentino, William Daniels; directed by Bruce Beresford. (1989) — Duncan Shepherd
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