Though Roger Ebert thought the film started strong, he ultimately felt it crumbled under the weight of its twisty plot machinations. Though he suspects the real culprit is incarcerated serial killer Blair Sullivan (Harris), Paul soon learns there are deeper, darker secrets at play here. Paul thinks Bobby was railroaded by Sheriff Tanny Brown (Laurence Fishburne), who violently forced him into a confession. He's pulled back into private practice when elderly Evangeline Ferguson (Ruby Dee) asks him to defend her son, Bobby Earl (Blair Underwood), who's on death row for a rape and murder he claims he didn't commit. Sean Connery stars as Paul Armstrong, a Harvard law professor with a staunch opposition to the death penalty. "Seldom has a story about subjectivity been so solipsistic," wrote Indiewire's David Ehrlich. In his scathing review, Nick Allen of praises Harris, saying he "emerges with the most complete or interesting portrait, as an intense, regretful father, more complicated than Stephen's one-dimensional portrait of him." He couldn't find much else to like about the film, a sentiment shared by the vast majority of critics. This causes him to question his own memories, and he attempts to patch things up with his dad before it's too late. While reading an excerpt, he's confronted by the elder Elliott, who claims everything he's written about him is a lie. Meanwhile, Elliott is on a press tour for his previous book, an autobiographical look at his abusive childhood (Timothee Chalamet plays the author in flashbacks). The proposed biography changes drastically when Reiser is arrested for the suspected murder of his missing wife. Peter Debruge of Variety called it, "a scattershot Southern melodrama that can't decide what it wants to be," adding it was "sustained only by Jennifer Connelly's empathetic perf." Those bad reviews did nothing to help its chance at the box office, where it grossed a paltry $12K.Īfter struggling with substance abuse and homelessness, Elliott is hired to write a book about software designer Hans Reiser (Christian Slater). Connelly gives a brave, full-tilt performance that is true to the character but can't hold the movie together," opined Stephen Holden of The New York Times. Harris' wife, Amy Madigan, costars as his onscreen spouse, Roseanna, who suspects something's going on.Īlthough Connelly won praise for her performance, the rest of the film was largely dismissed by reviewers, even after the extensive recuts. There's also the issue of Virginia's recent cancer diagnosis, which she decides to turn into a fake pregnancy so she can blackmail her lover for financial support while he's running for state senate. Their relationship is further complicated when Virginia's son, Emmett (Harrison Gilbertson), falls in love with Tipon's daughter, Jessie (Roberts). The semi-autobiographical story stars Connelly as Virginia, a schizophrenic Southern belle who carries on a decades-long affair with married sheriff Richard Tipton (Harris). Roger Ebert concurred, calling it, "a particularly nasty little example of audience manipulation leading to a conclusion that, had I accepted it, would have left me feeling unclean." Schlesinger made a film as mean-spirited and empty as this," said Janet Maslin of The New York Times. Despite the best efforts of her husband, Mack (Harris), and kindly police detective Denillo (Joe Mantegna), Karen becomes obsessed with enacting her own form of vengeance.Ĭritics savaged "Eye for an Eye," ripping it for its tacky approach to touchy subject matter (especially coming around the same time as "Dead Man Walking," a film that approached murder and capital punishment in a far more humane way). When the killer, Robert Doob (Kiefer Sutherland), gets let off on a legal technicality, he starts deliberately stalking Karen and her younger daughter, Megan (Alexandra Kyle). Field plays Karen McCann, a happily-married suburbanite who is forced to listen to her teenage daughter, Julie (Olivia Burnett), get violently raped and murdered over the phone.
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