Double Jeopardy (1999 film)

Libby Parsons (Ashley Judd) and her husband Nick (Bruce Greenwood) are wealthy residents of Whidbey Island, Washington. With her best friend, Angela Green (Annabeth Gish) offering to look after her 4-year-old son, Matty (Benjamin Weir), Libby and Nick go off sailing for the weekend on their yacht. After a session of love making, Libby falls asleep and is found by a Coast Guard patrol with her husband missing, blood all over her and the boat's floors, and a bloody knife on deck.

Even with Nick's body unaccounted for, Libby is arrested, humiliated in the media, tried, and convicted of her husband's murder. Libby asks Angela to look after Matty for the duration of her prison sentence. At first, Angela brings Matty to see Libby in prison, but after a while, these visits cease and she disappears. Libby tracks Angela back to San Francisco, calls her and speaks with Matty. In the midst of their conversation, Matty suddenly exclaims, "Daddy!" right before the line goes dead.

Libby realizes that Nick possibly faked his death and framed her, leaving Matty as the sole beneficiary of his life insurance policy. After unsuccessfully attempting to get investigative help, she is told by a fellow inmate named Margaret (Roma Maffia) that if she were to get paroled for good behavior, she could kill Nick with impunity due to the Double Jeopardy Clause in the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Libby spends the next six years in prison building up her body and committing herself to finding Matty. Eventually paroled, she begins searching for Nick and Matty while living in a halfway house under the close supervision of parole officer Travis Lehman (Tommy Lee Jones), a former law professor whose wife and daughter left him after the family was in a car accident with him driving under alcoholic influence. Libby violates her curfew and is caught breaking into Matty's school on Whidbey Island to try to get Angela's records. However, as Lehman is delivering Libby back to prison via a car ferry, he handcuffs her to the car door handle and goes for a drink. As he left the keys, Libby drives the car back and forth to knock off the door handle. When Lehman returns, they struggle until the car goes overboard. After Lehman uncuffs her, Libby knocks him out and swims to shore while Lehman is rescued by ferry personnel. She goes to her family farm, where her mother gives her cash to enable her to search for her husband and child.

Libby discovers that Angela has recently died in Colorado in a home gas explosion, likely an accident staged by Nick. Tracing a clue leads her to New Orleans, where she finds Nick running a luxury hotel under an assumed name, Jonathan Devereaux. Libby confronts Nick after making a winning bid on him at a bachelor's auction during a fund raising party hosted at his hotel. She demands he return Matty in exchange for her silence about his real identity, while he claimed that he faked his death to collect insurance, as his original business was going under.

Their parley is cut short when Lehman shows up at the party to warn Nick that his wife is a fugitive. In the French Quarter, Libby is later tipped off by a bartender, who recognizes her from a wanted poster but lets her escape the police as no reward is offered. Nick agrees to bring Matty to a meeting in Lafayette Cemetery No. 3. There he uses a decoy boy to distract Libby, knocks her unconscious, and locks her in a casket inside a mausoleum. Using a handgun she had snatched from Lehman, Libby manages to shoot the hinges off the lid of the casket and escape the mausoleum.

While tracking Libby in New Orleans, Lehman himself begins to believe Libby's story, based on the clues uncovered in his search. He finds a picture of a different Nicholas Parsons when searching the Washington State DMV records to prove his suspicions, and later uncovers six DMV records under that name, including Nick's DMV application and photograph. After intercepting Libby in the city as she makes her way to Nick's hotel, the two end up teaming up.

Lehman visits Nick in his office under the pretense of asking for money to keep his identity secret. He records a remark by Nick that he had murdered his wife, the only witness to his true past, and then Libby enters, holding Nick at gunpoint. Nick is given a choice of surrendering to the authorities or getting shot by his vengeful wife, who he believes would go free because of double jeopardy. Nick pulls out a hidden gun, shoots Lehman, and fires at Libby, but Lehman manages to bring him down before he can kill her. Nick gets the upper hand in the scuffle, but Libby shoots him dead.

Lehman promises to help Libby get fully pardoned, and together they travel to Matty's boarding school in Georgia. Matty (Spencer Treat Clark), now eleven years old, recognizes his mother, and they embrace with Lehman watching them.

• Tommy Lee Jones as Travis Lehman
• Ashley Judd as Elizabeth "Libby" Parsons
• Bruce Greenwood as Nicholas "Nick" Parsons/Simon Ryder/Jonathan Devereaux
• Annabeth Gish as Angie Green/Angie Ryder
• Roma Maffia as Margaret Skolowski
• Jay Brazeau as Bobby Long
• Michael Gaston as Cutter
• Daniel Lapaine as Handsome Internet Expert
• Dave Hager as Jim Mangold
• Benjamin Weir as Matty Parsons - Age 4
• Spencer Treat Clark as Matty Parsons - Age 11
• Davenia McFadden as Evelyn Lake
• Betsy Brantley as Prosecutor
• Babz Chula as Ruby

After Michelle Pfeiffer, Meg Ryan and Brooke Shields all declined the role, Jodie Foster was attached to star in the film as Libby Parsons and Bruce Beresford met with her several times about the script:

She said to me once, when we were having . . .not an argument, we had different points of view over something, and she said, 'We'll have to do it my way, I'm afraid.' And I said, 'Why, Jodie?' And she said, 'Because I'm so intelligent. I'm such an intelligent person that there is no point in disagreeing with me because I'm always right.' I thought she was joking, but she wasn't! [laughs] She had this extraordinary opinion of her own IQ.[2]

The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution states plainly: "[N]or shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb . . . ."[3] The four essential protections included are prohibitions against, for the same offense: retrial after an acquittal; after a conviction; or after certain mistrials; and multiple punishment. The Double Jeopardy Clause has no bearing on separate crimes of the same nature, including murder of a person on a separate occasion (and, in this case, under separate jurisdiction). Homicide could, however, be presumed thus given the unique nature of a murder vis-à-vis a particular individual (supporting, arguably, an retrial for the first “murder” but ‘’not’’ protection from indictment for a “second”). Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz criticized the movie for misrepresenting the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment.[4]

Regardless of the accuracy of the movie's interpretation of the double jeopardy clause, since Nick was about to kill Lehman and Libby when Libby killed Nick, Libby likely would have been acquitted by reason of her right of self-defense. The statement regarding the clause is only briefly elaborated by a fellow convict, and affirmed (only in front of a terrified Nick) by Lehman, and so does not mean to reflect the movie's statement on the law in its essence.

The film is rated 27% on Rotten Tomatoes from 86 critics, as its "consensus" states: "A talented cast fails to save this unremarkable thriller."[5] Roger Ebert gave the film two and a half stars out of four.[6] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[7]

However, some critics reacted to this film with positive reviews. Leonard Maltin gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, calling it "slick entertainment".[8] Mick LaSalle from the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that the film is a "well-acted diversion, directed by Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy) with an intelligent grasp of the moment-to-moment emotion".[9] For her performance in the film Ashley Judd won Favorite Actress at the 6th Blockbuster Entertainment Awards.[10]

• It Is the Law (1924)
• The Hassled Hooker (Italy, 1972)
• Scorpion's Revenge (Japan, 1997)
• Panic Room (2002)

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Double Jeopardy (1999 film)

• Double Jeopardy on IMDb
• Straight Dope article on Double Jeopardy, including discussion of this film
• Double Jeopardy at Rotten Tomatoes