The film is mediocre, but seeing Ed Harris' performance as a manipulative serial killer (I'm not giving anything away by telling you this) is worth the entire movie. Too often serial killers are played as geniuses--Jack in "The Profiler" or Kevin Spacey's character in "Seven"; Harris creates a malignant redneck monster that really will startle and chill you. No one goes from zero to sixty like Harris since George C. Scott left us; in this film he modulates his voice amazingly, sounding quietly venomous one moment and then thundering like a fire and brimstone Southern minister. In Connery's case, it's just bad casting: he plays an academic consulting lawyer (a la Dershowitz {sp?}) who combats Fishburne's menacing but canny Southern cop. Connery's other roles and the notion of him they have created in us make it impossible for him to play the effete lawyer that the script seems to call for.
Review of Just Cause
