Under Suspicion (2000)

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

In Puerto Rico, wealthy lawyer Henry Hearst (Gene Hackman) is married to beautiful Chantal (Monica Bellucci). Police detectives Victor Benezet (Morgan Freeman) and Felix Owens (Thomas Jane) investigate Henry for the rape and murder of a young girl. There is no direct evidence but Henry's story starts to fall apart revealing marital problems and personal sexual accusations.The material may not be worthy and the directing style is poor. This is a four-handed play with four great actors. There is good possibilities but ultimately, the story is unsatisfying. This deserves more cinematic style. It may be compelling for completists but for everybody else, these actors have been in better.

to everything else already said about this film - which I gave a 7 out of 10 rating due to the outstanding performances by Hackman, Freeman and Bellucci (who here transcended her fairly squarely decorative role in ways I haven't witnessed her managing to do in any of her other roles, sorry to say, so far - !), despite detesting the directing (which I suspect was exacerbated by bad editing, to boot…) - I wish to add what I notice seems to be missing from almost all other reviews (pro & IMDb); the very real problem of reducing a person down by the process of police (or any official or organised) interrogation which can indeed result in a person credibly confessing to crimes NOT committed; not to make the claim that most of the inmates of the incarceration system confessed to crimes not committed, but high-profile, high pressure crimes can really become a sort of psychological pressure-cooker, perhaps in collaboration with a media circus, reducing wrong results - and thereby not only 'breaking' an otherwise OK or perhaps even decent & upright person caught in the wrong place @ the wrong time, but permitting the actual perpetrator to get away with an unspeakable &/or awful crime. Ironically, serial killers & sociopaths KNOW that, and so manipulating others in ways which will most likely result in this sort of thing IS their thing! (I recall there was a famous case of precisely this in England with a serial killer who started during the war, when getting away with murder was relatively easy, then through a series of elaborate manipulations, resuming his murdering while cunningly framing another for it afterward.) By way of a more simple example; a friend of mine's mother was once questioned by the FBI on the basis of a matter carried out by someone with her exact same name, which mistake revealed itself during the course of their conversation and so was corrected - but she said that by the end of the interview/interrogation, she herself was questioning whether she really was the person she and her family & friends knew herself to be, or the one they THOUGHT she was! Which is hilarious on the one hand, on the other hand it shows how when convinced persons in authority assert something with sufficient confidence, their conviction can be so compelling as to have unintended consequences.Obviously this movie revolves around the relationship of a very flawed couple caught up in a painful & toxic marriage, and a detective who is motivated by his own largely unspoken post-divorce demons, in addition to his genuine outrage over the crimes committed and concern for the public and other potential victims (justified, as he's unable to prevent a third crime - and as a direct result, could be argued, of taking up SO much time trying to pin the first two on the guy under suspicion and in his custody during the time of the 3rd crime…), and being - as already pointed out - really & truly a play, not a movie, it visits much (mostly murky!) subject-matter much more suited to staging than filming, IMO. But as-said, the acting is outstanding in this and worth watching for that, as well as perhaps this very pertinent and perhaps also primary point - which I really want to make, as I really think it matters. :)

My opinion about the story: 1. Freeman is just a simple detective, who has nothing left in his life but his job, so he puts everything into finding the killer. He has real reasons to suspect Hackman. Hackman finds the second victim, and normally he gives a statement, statement that the police HAS to check of course. Many thing do not add up, and the real suspicion starts when the car of Hackman had been trace to the place where/when first victim was killed. Fair enough I would say! Even if for Freeman is a very sensitive case, considering that Hackman was not only an attorney, but also a important figure in the island society, still Freeman is keen to find the truth, no matter who the killer is. 2. Hackman is NOT a paedophile! He is a normal guy, that felt deeply in love with this very young woman. Mind that they got together when she was in college, as he paid for her education. She was not 11 or 14 in college, was she? He loves enormously his wife, but the SICK person, in fact the only sick person in the story, is Chantal. She is extremely jealous, possessive, to the point of accusing him of having something for her sister daughter. He is just a simple 57 old guy, who never had his own kids, and of course he would feel tenure for the kids of others. Chantal suffers, besides of her unreasonable jealousy, she also suffers of a high level of selfishness. She would not have her own kids, just for a simple fact. She would lose Hackman attention and she would feel jealousy towards her own children. That i would say is sickness. 3.Hackman confess to 2 crimes he did not do for a simple reason. Years after years he tried to fight back all sort of accusations,including him liking little girls, accusations coming from the woman he loves profusely. Every second of his life he hopes that his wife, that he so much loves, will come around, realising that those accusations and jealousy are totally crazy... and then he ends up in the middle of this murder investigation. He is tired, he can't do it anymore, so he gave up! He gave up defending himself from his wife, not the police. In fact by his confection he is sending himself free from Chantal. Admitting all her accusation meant losing her, which was what he strongly fought against. 4. In the end Chantal has a moment of clarity, when her mind is cured again. She realised what she had done and she thinks of killing herself. Of course she is too selfish, self observed to go ahead with the jumping. But Hackman is free! Free of her! When she tried to approach him, considering that all he wished for and hoped for was for her to come back to him, he rejects her! HE IS FREE! Freeman realised that too! This is why maybe the name of the detective is FREEMAN... as the detective was the man who helped Hackman to become free again!!!! 5. Regarding Chantal sickness, well the explanation is simple. She knew Hackman since she was 11 years old, as he was her father friend! She lost her father when she was 14 years old, and Hackman took care of her, paid for her education... well, he became her father. Until the moment they became also lovers, the relationship should be clear.. and, this is explaining why she would feel jealousy towards little girls! She was not worried that Hackman will find a sexual attraction for a little girl at that particular moment! She was concern that if a little girl will fulfil Hackmam parental need, and will end up growing and becoming also a beautiful woman, then she has been replaced! Hackman was seen by Chantal both as father and as lover. And her only competition could only develop in a similar bound as hers with Hackman. First innocent parental love, which will grow into sexual attraction as the little girl will grow into a woman. Of course Chantal was a very confused woman, who needed professional help!

First Advice: Do not read any spoilers or details about this movie, the less you know about it the more you will enjoy it. This is not because of some "amazing surprise ending" but because every line of dialog gradually builds a picture of the life and character of the protagonist, and the thrill of seeing it all develop is so much the greater if you do not know where it is (supposedly) going.Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman are their usual brilliant selves, but the study is all about Gene Hackman, his troubles, triumphs, loves and losses, and how he has dealt with them -- for better or worse.Gene Hackman discovers the body of a murdered girl and dutifully reports it to the police. But there are some problems with his story they want to clear up, and as he attempts to explain them he seems to be digging a deeper hole for himself, bringing us to the title, he is "under suspicion." It is impossible to discuss this movie without giving spoilers, so I will instead mention one of the greatest classics that it can be compared to, that play we all had to read in high school: Oedipus Rex. We all know that play is about a man who murdered his father and married his mother, right? Wrong! The play is about a man who has been told he is destined to do these things. But he is not a craven pervert who wants to kill his father or sleep with his mother. He is in fact just like you and I, he finds such things disgusting, and so he spends his life seeking to avoid the prophecy. But the reason we all have to read it in high school to this day is not just because he is a good guy trying to avoid an evil fate, it is the masterful revealing of each little detail through the play that gradually reveals how Oedipus' attempts to avoid the curse have brought him directly into it.There are two parallels with Oedipus Rex. Both stories deal with a crime universally recognized as horrible and perverted, and both are masterfully told to gradually reveal more and more detail about what may or may not have happened.This is why you do not want to know anything about this movie before seeing it, because it is not about knowing whether or not he is guilty, or what troubles he may have in his marriage (who doesn't?), it is about the brilliantly written dialog and interplay between Hackman and Freeman as the suspicion is developed.One final warning. There are plenty of good movies out there that fully develop both man and woman as characters in a troubled relationship, this is not one of them. Hackman's wife exists solely to further develop his own character. It is not about her, it is about him. If you don't like such one-sided developments, well, maybe you won't like this movie.