Guilty as Sin (1993)

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Looks like a TV-movie. Slow. Drab. Then becomes quite violent and is clearly not in TV-movie land anymore. Rebecca could have done much more with this. And the director should have avoided that boring feel that pervades the movie especially at the beginning. And that cheap way of starting the opening sequence, hell, what were they thinking? A computerized dummy tumbling down that takes forever sort of sums up the essence of the whole thing.By 1993 standards, very weak. Must be meant as an old-style thriller, but fails to deliver on its potential. Don's line re why he didn't use gloves, "it would have felt like f*cking her with a rubber" is the climax of the movie, and stabs at the wasted opportunity, as this could clearly have been truly suspenseful if they maintained such high evil standards. Instead of just low evil standards.

This is a movie with good "bones" (written by Larry Cohen and directed by Sidney Lumet) that for some reason doesn't quite make it.Rebecca DeMornay plays Jennifer Haines, an attorney who notices a man (Don Johnson) while tying up another case. He's staring her down, so she recognizes him again when he makes the newspaper for allegedly killing his wife and then walks into her office after being told she can't see him. His name is David Edgar Greenhill, and he wants Haines to defend her. She doesn't want to, but the court assigns her to the case over her objection. There's something about this guy that's creepy and makes her uneasy.She's right to be uneasy. Greenhill knows all about her life and her boyfriend, and basically uses her as a pawn in his own schemes, all the while intimating that they're lovers and disrupting her relationship.I'm going out on a limb here and guessing that this movie did not have a big budget, and that was part of the problem. It was filmed in Canada, and back in 1993 anyway that meant low-budget. Also, while I like Rebecca DeMornay and Don Johnson okay, they're not exactly Michelle Pfeiffer and Mel Gibson, to name two stars of that era. I think better acting would have helped the movie. Don Johnson was just too much of everything - overly oily, overly smooth speaking, overly gentlemanly, overly charming, overly dressed. Supposedly his character is a gigolo. Maybe some women are desperate enough to fall for this guy but anyone who can't see through his act is pathetic.This movie needed a "star", an attractive man who comes off as very likable naturally, without it being put on, even someone going against type like John Travolta or Tom Hanks (this is the '90s, remember) and then it might have been more compelling. It isn't an easy role - he has to have a threatening subtext, a look in his eyes, something, with everything about him belying it until the claws really come out.De Mornay, on the other hand, definitely conveyed her character's tension, anxiety, and attempt to stay calm, as well as a lot of allure.Jack Warden gives good support as an investigator who helps De Mornay.This is a decent story, with a few things that stretch reality, but like someone said on the board, Johnson is so evil you have to watch the whole thing to see if he gets his comeuppance. A worthy attempt if just not quite right.

Usually, before the woman in jeopardy discovers that her client or her handyman or gardener is guilty of murder, she has to fall in love and have an affair with him. The examples are too numerous to list but "Jagged Edge" can serve. In this case, Rebecca De Mornay is a lawyer at a high-end Chicago firm. She's hired by the narcissistic Don Johnson to defend him when he's accused of tossing his wealthy wife out a fourteen-story window.The odd thing -- almost the ONLY unpredictable feature of the movie -- is that she is wary of him from the beginning. She accepts the retainer, gets him out on bail, and defends him in court, with the assistance of the usual flawed investigator. Sometimes the assistant is a drunk -- Robert Loggia or Morgan Freeman -- and sometimes just well meaning but old and a little out of it. Here, it's Jack Warden, who played a similar role in "Verdict," a much better film.This is one hoary suspense device after another. A hand may reach in from off screen at a particularly spooky moment and shock the heroine. It soon becomes clear that Don Johnson is a homicidal maniac and we get scene after scene of people alone at night in deserted urban spaces like empty offices, dark hotel corridors, and those horrible multi-level parking lots with lots of shadows and distant blue neon.I don't know how Sidney Lumet -- a fine director -- could wrap his mind around a story like this. I don't know how he could have coped with it except by dozing off in his director's chair. The plot seems to have been ground out by a computer. Any questions about it could have been answered by a Magic Eight Ball.The art director certainly knew what he wanted. The settings are all sterile and the walls festooned with tasteful paintings. There's never any doubt that we're in greenback territory, although most of the supporting players speak with Canadian accents. There is nothing shabby about the settings, nor should there be.Jack Warden is his reliable self. And Rebecca De Mornay, thoroughly glamorized, has rarely looked so attractive. I thought she was more appealing as the raggedy, freckled, rosy-cheeked stowaway in "Runaway Train," but that's my perversion. She turns in a decent, textured performance too. The same can't be said for Don Johnson. Part of it must be the role as written, slimy and repulsive. But part is also Don Johnson, who has never convinced me that he's a good actor, though he's often cast as some masculine type who carries a cloud of pheromones around with him wherever he goes.This is strictly routine suspense, but if that's what you're looking for, the film delivers it.

**SPOILERS THROUGHOUT THE REVIEW** High powered attorney Jennifer Haines (Rebecca DeMorany) is seduced by handsome, smooth (and obviously sociopathic) David Greenhill (Don Johnson) into defending him over a charge that he killed his wife. As she gets to know him she discovers that he DID kill his wife and is slowly destroying her life. She gets old friend Moe (Jack Warden is wasted) to help her but David isn't above killing to get his way.It starts off good with great acting by DeMornay and Johnson but the story gets sillier as the movie goes on. Some VERY questionable legal technicalities are bought up and DeMorany goes to truly ridiculous lengths to get Johnson convicted WHILE she's defending him! Also there are huge loopholes in the script and DeMornay overreacts (and overacts) when she realizes what's going on. Seriously, wouldn't an intelligent attorney like her see that Greenhill is a raging sociopath AND extremely dangerous? Still all the acting is good and it leads up to a bloody and satisfying conclusion. I give this a 6 but (unless you're a fan of any of the stars) you're not missing anything. I originally saw it back in 1993 in a theatre and I wasn't thrilled with it then either.