Just Cause (1995)
Average Rating: 4/10
Reviews Counted: 27
Fresh: 6 | Rotten: 21
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 4.1/10
Critic Reviews: 9
Fresh: 2 | Rotten: 7
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.1/5
User Ratings: 14,017
Movie Info
The novel by John Katzenbach becomes this legal thriller starring Sean Connery as Harvard Law School professor Paul Armstrong. A legal expert whose days of trying cases are long behind him, Armstrong is moved by a plea he receives from a Florida death row inmate, Bobby Earl (Blair Underwood). It seems that the educated, upstanding Earl has been railroaded by an overeager sheriff (Laurence Fishburne) zealously trying to solve the kidnapping and murder of a little girl. Once Armstrong arrives in
Feb 17, 1995 Wide
Jun 22, 1999
Warner Home Video
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Cast
-
Sean Connery
Paul Armstrong -
Laurence Fishburne
Tanny Brown -
Kate Capshaw
Laurie Armstrong -
Blair Underwood
Bobby Earl -
Ed Harris
Blair Sullivan -
Christopher Murray
Wilcox -
Brooke Alderson
Dr. Doliveau -
Ned Beatty
McNair -
Tony Bolano
Prisoner -
Ruby Dee
Evangeline -
Hope Lange
Libby Prentiss -
Gary Landon Mills
Prisoner -
George Plimpton
Elder Phillips -
Chris Sarandon
Lyle Morgan -
Lynne Thigpen
Ida Conklin -
Liz Torres
Delores -
Daniel J. Travanti
Warden -
Melanie Hughes
Receptionist -
Kevin McCarthy
Phil Prentiss -
Richard Liberty
Chaplin -
Victor Slezak
Sgt. Rogers -
Scarlett Johansson
Kate -
Taral Hicks
Lena -
Colleen Fitzpatrick
Prosecutor
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Just Cause Trailer & Photos
All Critics (30) | Top Critics (12) | Fresh (6) | Rotten (21) | DVD (3)
In Connery it has a hero who is inescapably appealing.
Top CriticDespite its merits, the script fails to escape the silly season that fouls up so many thrillers, that time when the twists merely seem like the narrative equivalents of those violin shrieks on a cheesy score.
It doesn't bog down in the bogs, but it's slow-moving just about everyplace else.
There is no psychological depth, no real motivation, no human values to weigh, just characters jerked here and there like puppets in an arbitrary plot.
The longer you stay with it, the more routine and uninspired it seems -- not to mention cowardly.
Despite its tendency to tread well-traveled roads, Just Cause is filmed with enough energy and craft that, for the majority of its one-hundred minute running time, it's reasonably entertaining.
Good crime flick with strength in casting of Sean Connery.
Connery is as steady as always....great twists
Forgettable and less than thrilling.
Ridiculous from start to finish. Connery, Harris, and Fishburne couldn't have wasted their time in a less productive fashion.
A sorry excuse for a thriller, with both narrative and character handled with remarkable ineptitude.
Things heat up for the last bang-up 40 minutes all right, but why did director Arne Glimcher feel it necessary to go so formulaically dull at first?
The plot machinations here become so contrived and the coincidences so bizarre that by the end ... audience members will likely be scratching their heads.
On the whole the film ends up no more than an unbelievable action picture with a few rewarding performances.
Semi-entertaining mystery/thriller.
It's a rich, humid mix of race, murder, and mystery that works well, even if it doesn't work perfectly.
Audience Reviews for Just Cause
Super Reviewer
Good movie. The movie didn't really surprise me that much and I have seen better but still I thought it was well made. It really seem like Sean Connery nail his part and Laurence Fishburne did allright too as a supporting actor.
The year is 1986. In Ochopee, Florida, 11-year-old Joanie Shriver is kidnapped, raped, and murdered. Bobby Earl Ferguson is arrested by officers Tanny Brown and J. T. Wilcox, who proceed to beat Bobby into confessing to the murder. Bobby is placed on trial, where Bobby's defense attorney McNair puts up a lousy defense for Bobby, and Bobby is sentenced to be executed. Now, eight years later, Bobby hands a letter to his grandmother Evangeline and asks Evangeline to go to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to hire Harvard law professor Paul Armstrong to clear Bobby's name. At Harvard, Paul is attacking capital punishment in a campus debate, when Evangeline arrives and hands the letter to Paul. Paul goes home, where his wife Laurie is throwing a birthday party for their young daughter Katey. Laurie reads the letter and she encourages Paul to take the case, even though he hasn't practiced law in 25 years. Paul, Laurie, and Katey head to Florida, where Paul meets Bobby in the prison. Bobby tells Paul his side of the story and what Tanny and Wilcox did. Paul begins to believe that Bobby was railroaded. Bobby tells Paul to speak to Blair Sullivan, a man who is also on death row. Blair gives Paul some clues that could prove Bobby's innocence and Blair's own guilt. But in the process of trying to clear Bobby, Paul learns some disturbing truths about Bobby, putting Paul and his family in a fight for their lives.
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Latest News on Just Cause
November 11, 2005:
Sean Connery Earns AFI's Highest HonorThanks to ComingSoon.net for sharing a press release from the American Film Institute: Sir Sean...
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