Netflix And Chill: Double Jeopardy (1999)

In case you didn't know, double jeopardy is a legal term that, apparently, means you cannot be arrested and judged for the same crime twice. There's more nuance to it than that, and I am in no way offering any kind of legal advice here, but that's what this film wants you to believe. So, for example, if your husband framed you for his murder while he disappeared and started a whole new life then you could, once out of prison, track him down and shoot him in the middle of a crowd without anyone being able to do a damn thing about it. Apparently. And that is the premise for what turns out to be a very enjoyable thriller from the late '90s.

Ashley Judd plays Libby, a woman who has her world rocked when she wakes up one morning to find blood everywhere, a knife nearby, and no sign of her husband (Bruce Greenwood). She is found guilty of his murder, and serves six years of a prison sentence before showing enough contrition to get herself out on parole. She knows that her husband isn't dead though. She wants to find him, and she wants to reunite with her son, Matty. All that her parole officer wants, however, is a peaceful life, and the fact that her parole officer is played by Tommy Lee Jones ensures that Libby would be unwise to start breaking any rules.

Directed by Bruce Beresford, who has a lengthy film career stretching back decades, but may still hold this film up as a real highlight, Double Jeopardy is very enjoyable nonsense. The fact that it has some level of self-awareness, thanks to the screenplay by David Weisberg and Douglas Cook, helps a lot, especially when you start to wonder about certain repercussions that are then shown mere moments later (almost as if the writers allow you to have a moment to consider things before winking and letting you know that they've given some thought to keeping the whole thing both entertaining and at least slightly plausible).

It also helps that Judd and Jones are both fantastic in their lead roles. Judd moves from entirely sweet and innocent to righteous and tenacious, and everyone watching will want to see her succeed, while Jones gives us the kind of gruff and "slowly and surely" hunter that he basically perfected in The Fugitive. Greenwood is enjoyably smarmy and dangerous, and there's an enjoyably pivotal role for Annabeth Gish, who ends up committing the major error that sets Judd's character on her determined quest for revenge/reparation.

A third act set in New Orleans helps to keep things interesting and lively, there are a number of scenes that have a surprisingly good dollop of wit in the mix (our lead being hit on by someone who helps her with an internet search is perhaps the first example, and made me properly chuckle), and the whole thing may just make you nostalgic for these smaller, but still star-powered, movies that we sadly don't seem to see any more. It's also a reminder of how good Judd was in the prime roles she was given throughout the 1990s and 2000s.

7/10

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Salem's Lot (2024)

It's been 20 years since the last adaptation of Salem's Lot so I guess there's a chance that many people exploring the horror genre nowadays will be less familiar with the tale, first presented in a Stephen King novel that remains one of his best, before being turned into a traumatic TV movie directed by Tobe Hooper. There have also been other sojourns into, or near, the town, with A Return To Salem's Lot in the mid-1980s, and King himself expanding on the tale in separate short stories and as part of the threads winding through The Dark Tower book series. So I don't think it should ever be classed as something that cannot be revisited/reworked.

Lewis Pullman is our Ben Mears this time around, a writer who returns to the small town that he lived in for a time as a child. The town, and particularly one large house, has a certain pull to it. Ben forms a connection with Susan Norton (Makenzie Leigh) while he is back in town, and befriends a schoolteacher named Matt Burke (Bill Camp). It doesn't take long for these three to notice that something strange is happening around them, with town residents disappearing or acting very odd, as a powerful vampire decides to make Jerusalem's Lot the base for his attempt to turn the USA into his own little Fangtasia.

The second film directed by Gary Dauberman, who helped to make the Annabelle series such a success, and also worked on the screenplay for both chapters of It, the biggest problem with Salem's Lot is something I wouldn't normally tend to complain about. It's far too short. Considering both of the main previous attempts to film this story have clocked in at about the 3-hour mark, this solo movie needs far more than the 114-minute runtime it gets. That becomes very obvious when scenes seem to clash against one another, allowing no time for the proper development of the bigger picture of a town being infected and turned into a ghost town (but, obviously, the ghosts are all vampires).

There are good moments here, all of the actual vampire stuff is well-handled (it's often spooky and inventive, if never actually scary), and the way in which certain scenes are reworked is often surprisingly successful, especially in the change of setting for the big final battle. It's just a shame that the pacing never feels right for most of the runtime, with the exception of a few set-pieces in the second half that you just know the rest of the movie was planned around.

Pullman is decent in the lead role, although he doesn't shine as brightly as some other potential choices (Ben Mears has never been the most memorable King character though, despite the greatness of the story). Leigh is better, with the advantage of being able to comment on a town that she's lived in all her life. Both Bill Camp and Alfre Woodard (playing Dr. Cody) are excellent, feeling quite appropriately like more experienced peers helping the younger leads to deal with a very odd situation, and there are also enjoyable performances from John Benjamin Hickey (as Father Callahan), William Sadler (Sheriff Parker Gillespie), Pilou Asbæk (as Mr. Straker), and Spencer Treat Clark (superbly unnerving as the grave-digger, Mike Ryerson). The other person to mention is Jordan Preston Carter, playing young Mark Petrie with an expected mix of wisdom, anger, and terror. Carter is very good in the role, although a couple of the best moments involving his character are slightly mis-handled, again all to do with the pacing.

Maybe we'll see the full version of this one day, and I don't doubt that there was a lot of extra work done in the editing room here. It's almost like watching a series on a streaming service and accidentally hitting the "play next episode" option twice, leaving you with a gap that you piece together as the ongoing narrative continues. There's still enough to enjoy here, and it's certainly not as bad as many other remakes I could mention. The visuals and atmosphere both have moments of brilliance, but it's clear from the opening credits and very first scenes that this is a film with much more just beyond the edges of the screen that horror fans would love to see.

6/10

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Glass (2019).

Okay, there's no way for me to discuss my biggest problem with Glass without it seeming slightly spoilery so I would ask you to stop reading this review now if you have yet to see the film. I still dislike spoilers, and I am not one of those people who thinks it is okay to spoil movies for other peopler if it is a movie that I personally disliked (and I did dislike this), but I was rooting for Glass to win me over for about 3/4 of the runtime. Then the finale locked all of the pieces into place, and that's where it lost me. Because after giving us a great, unique, superhero origin tale with Unbreakable, M. Night Shyamalan decided to make Split a surprise supervillain origin tale connected to that movie. It wasn't as good as Unbreakable but the cast helped to make it work and the ending had a lot of people (including myself) quite excited. So you have one origin story, another origin story, and then M. Night Shyamalan squanders the opportunity to make something truly memorable by cheekily turning this third entry in what is now a trilogy into . . . a third origin story. Yep, that's really what this is. And that may please Shyamalan, but it's less likely to please those who expected something more.

Here's the basic story. David Dunn (Bruce Willis) now patrols the streets and tries to seek out, and stop, criminals. He is helped by his son, Joseph (Spencer Treat Clark returning to the role that last saw him acting onscreen as a child), and all is going well until he bumps into the dangerous multiple personalities of the character, Kevin/Dennis/Hedwig/etc, played by James McAvoy (let's just call him Kevin from now on). Caught in the middle of a fight, David and Kevin are locked up in a mental health institution, where another notable patient is Elijah Price (AKA Mr Glass, Samuel L. Jackson). Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson) wants to convince them that the ideas they have in their heads, the notions that they have superpowers, are merely delusions, potentially dangerous ones. The doctor may soon find herself out of her depth.

Shyamalan still has talent. That's what perhaps remains the most frustrating thing about him, the biggest obstacle to his success is himself. Of course, I am saying this without knowing the general majority opinion on this movie (which, for all I know, could be loved by many people). But his good points are as obvious as his failings. The guy does well with plotting, the look and feel of his films, and I'd argue that he is often also very good at being able to get the pacing just right. Shyamalan rarely makes films that hurtle from start to finish, but he shoots the quieter, slower, moments so well that they are still engrossing in between any more exciting sequences. He also tends to get great work from composers, and the score here by West Dylan Thordson is no exception.

On the flipside, he often creates scripts that seem designed to showcase how good he is with his words and ideas (as good as he views himself, anyway), and he often builds his movies around one major idea or twist. That's all well and good when everything works, as happened with his solid run of four movies spread out around the turn of this century, but not so good otherwise. He's a gambler who continues to bet big with the hope that the last card turned over will be the one to give him the unbeatable hand. That card isn't always drawn, leaving him with a large investment on the table and nothing good enough to lay down at the end.

The cast all do well here, with McAvoy arguably getting to play around even more than he did in Split (and he's the best person onscreen). Willis at least looks present for a number of his scenes, which is more than can be said for many of his other performances in recent years, and Jackson clearly loves the chance to reprise the role of Price. Paulson is fine as the doctor, Anya Taylor-Joy (who was so good in Split) continues to prove herself as an intriguing and excellent screen presence, and it's nice to see Clark as the boy still trying to look after his "superdad".

Breaking everything down to their basic elements, Glass is not a bad film. There are a number of good moments throughout, the script is serviceable, it often looks great, and a couple of the leads are giving it their all. It just fails to come together by the end, and it fails in such a way that genuinely sours the films that came before it, which surely couldn't have been Shyamalan's intention. That failure is enough to drag it down by some margin, and I almost considered going even lower with my final rating.

5/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy it here.