Ashley Judd, under a blanket of makeup, stops making cute faces and starts making other kinds of faces after her picture-perfect husband (Jim Caviezel) is hauled before a court-martial for the long-ago massacre of nine civilians in El Salvador. Seeing as she's a hot-shot Bay Area attorney, she elects to defend him herself, with a wily old former Marine and former drunk (Morgan Freeman, equal parts charm and gravity) to show her the ropes of military justice. But the case is nonsensical. Why would a corrupt and conspiratorial military, anxious to bury a stillborn scandal, dig up an innocent party to railroad for the crime? The alternative is still more illogical: why would it dig up the guilty party who could illuminate the corruption and conspiracy firsthand? There can be no question of its corruptness and conspiringness, as proven by the busy program of threats, intimidation, and outright assaults inflicted on the defense team. Final revelations only deepen the nonsense. And director Carl Franklin, belaboring the closeups in TV style, herewith goes to new lengths to renege on the early promise of his One False Move and Devil in a Blue Dress. With Adam Scott, Amanda Peet, Bruce Davison. (2002) — Duncan Shepherd
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