I've gotta admit that I conjured "The Fugitive" when reading the synopsis for "Presumed Innocent" (Harrison Ford accused of a crime he didn't commit), but the two movies are apples and oranges. With "Presumed Innocent", I got the impression that verisimilitude is what the filmmakers were after; show the audience the nuts and bolts of a trial, from the initial arrest to the actual hearing. The flashiness of your standard courtroom drama is absent here, which is why the movie is so methodically paced. And this is a great cast, although no one really has a fiery standout performance (except for Ford, whose decent man role defies his movie star status). Even Raul Julia (quickly becoming one of my favorite actors) is subdued here. Scratch that; subdued seems unfair. These actors are simply disappearing into the mechanics of the overall movie. The real surprise for me was that score, which sounds absolutely nothing like any John Williams music I've ever heard.
I wasn't prepared for that ending, and I don't want to say it was cheap (although it felt that way at first), it did fit in pretty well with the movie's deceptive undercurrent.
7/10.
I wasn't prepared for that ending, and I don't want to say it was cheap (although it felt that way at first), it did fit in pretty well with the movie's deceptive undercurrent.
7/10.