Review: 'High Crimes' takes easy out

All of the elements, little of the suspense

(CNN) -- "High Crimes," an often pedestrian courtroom drama reteaming Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman, is like a symphony played on cell phones. All the parts are there, but the chintzy result seems like a conglomeration of strategic button-pushing.

A military conspiracy yarn, it's full of open-air behavior by characters who, if they had any brains at all, would be lurking way back in the shadows. There's a big twist at the end, but you're absolutely certain something like it is on the horizon, because of how mundane everything else is.

Although the movie ends with a bang, the rest of it is an un-melodic, commercially polished whimper.

Looking for clues

Judd plays Claire Kubik, a tough Marin County lawyer who's recently made a big media splash by winning a high-profile case. Claire's quiet husband, Tom (Jim Caviezel), loves his wife to death, and vice-versa. There's even a cutesy scene in the early going in which we see the couple trying to "make a baby," rather than simply having sex. Everything is so peachy-keen for the Kubiks, you just know something awful will happen to them. And it does.

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One night, while strolling down a San Francisco sidewalk, Claire and Tom are rounded up by what appears to be a bunch of cops and a crack SWAT team. It turns out, much to Claire's tearful surprise, that Tom isn't Tom at all: He's Ronald Chapman, a covert military operative who's on the run from his superiors. Tom (or Ronald) swears to Claire that he's been framed for murdering nine unarmed villagers during a secret mission in El Salvador.

Tom never told Claire his real name and background because he couldn't take the chance of anyone finding out. He also says he knows who the real killer is -- and so does Judd, because the guy walks up and introduces himself to her when she first comes to the military prison where Tom is being held.

Admittedly, not everything in the story turns out exactly as you expect it to. But a lot of the manipulation laid on Claire during her research -- regardless of who's doing the manipulating -- is so overt, it seems like she'd get suspicious after three seconds.

Playing with the rules

Claire, in a move that's reminiscent of a 1930s B-picture, teams up with a baby-faced military lawyer named Embry (Adam Scott) to prove her husband is innocent. The dynamic duo, however, needs help, especially since it's obvious that everyone else would be happy to run Tom straight to the stockade and throw away the key.

Ashley Judd and Jim Caviezel star in "High Crimes."

That help arrives in the form of Charlie (Freeman), an alcoholic former military attorney who doesn't "play by the rules." This includes wearing a wrinkled sports coat into court and refusing to comb his hair. Free spirits, as we all know, seldom comb their hair.

Although Freeman is one of the greatest actors of his generation, this part is such a broad piece of character work that he never gets a chance to startle us. He can still make you believe most anything that comes out of his mouth, but the script's use of Charlie's alcoholism as a vaguely jokey plot device is downright tacky.

Director Carl Franklin also allows so many breaches of investigative and courtroom procedure that the case would be dropped like a hot shell casing.

This includes an absurd fistfight in an interrogation room and a witness' confession being secretly recorded during a night of defense-supplied whoring and binge drinking. Judd and Freeman just can't believe it when the judge rejects the tape as evidence. Apparently, the regulations are much looser up in San Francisco.

Had she played her cards right after her smashing debut performance in 1993's "Ruby in Paradise," Judd could have been the American Catherine Deneuve. She shares Deneuve's combination of brains, beauty and genuine talent, as opposed to the more customary equation of beauty, beauty and a great publicist. Unfortunately, her consistently unadventurous screenplay selection -- and that very much includes "High Crimes" -- has turned her into nothing more than Sandra Bullock. At long last, she's become a generic movie star instead of a gutsy actress, an unexpected development that ranks as an A-list shame.

"High Crimes" contains profanity, drinking, violence and bit of skin. The latter belongs to Amanda Peet, who plays Claire's sister solely to get a woman prancing around in skimpy undies. Judd wore the undies (quite well) in her last movie, so she probably figured it was time to share the wealth.