HIGH CRIMES (Carl Franklin, 2002)

Reviewed: April 12th, 2002

I am naturally wary of military thrillers because they seem to be the thrillers most prone to the trappings of the genre. Perhaps screenwriters and authors (military thrillers are frequently adapted from novels, as High Crimes is) have simply seen too many other military thrillers and only know how to ape what's come before. Or perhaps military thrillers are just the easiest type to plug clichés into. But it's a shame cause this subgenre has a lot of potential. After all, the military, like the Mafia, operates under its own set of laws and morality. Military personnel occupy a closed world and their way of life is exotic to the average civilian. This is obviously material ripe for plundering. Instead the mountain of clichés usually include: 1) the soldier accused of murder (often, as in High Crimes and the recent Rules of Engagement, this is specifically for executing people they shouldn't have during some worthless foreign mission we don't care about). 2) The corrupt, high-up, military bureaucrat and hence, subsequent cover-up (so fucking boring). And 3), the reversal (I won't spoil anything by expanding -- think The General's Daughter [note: I truly apologize for having just made people think about The General's Daughter]).

But man... when military thrillers work, they WORK... they can be really fucking great... such as Crimson Tide or A Few Good Men. What makes a film like A Few Good Men so superior is how it specifically focuses in on the morality of the military. On where the line is drawn between civilian law and military law... between military law and military practice. There are actual issues at stake-- difficult, interesting ones.

What never seems to work for filmmakers is the straight military thriller as murder mystery. When will filmmakers understand that who committed a murder is never as interesting as why? That's where the drama is... why.

Carl Franklin's High Crimes is the epitome of a bland film. No risks are ever taken and the audience is consistently condescended to. I refuse to believe that Franklin doesn't trust his audience... this is the same man who made the superb thriller One False Move, the very good Devil in a Blue Dress, and the excellent drama One True Thing. No, instead I will place at least part of the blame on Twentieth Century Fox (who produced High Crimes). Call me naive, call me idealistic, but I cannot accept that the studio did not interfere in some capacity during the making of this film. High Crimes certainly has all the hallmarks of a mass-produced, cookie-cutter studio shitbag.

Now granted... if the script that made it onscreen is all Franklin ever had to work with then yes, absolutely, this project was doomed from the start and it's pretty clear Franklin was just out to collect a paycheck. The script is hideously predictable and never fails to take the easiest way out of a scene. Everything feels like the writers were double checking various pages of a Syd Field book before they went on to each new scene. But script aside, simple directorial improvements could have been made to vast effect. One such improvement is placement of the score. I keep mentioning film's scores in recent reviews and I won't stop until filmmakers start getting them right. A score should underlie the tone and emotion of a scene. It should compliment everything that is on screen. However, just like a voice-over, what a score should definitely NOT do is tell the audience what they already know... and what a score should especially NOT do is beat the audience over the head until they're unconscious.

What angers me the most is how little filmmakers understand the value of silence. A dead soundtrack. It's an amazing thing. Part of the beauty of silence and one of the reasons it's so consistently effective is because of how underused it is (yes sometimes there is something to be said for novelty in film). Another reason is it makes the audience focus. Trusts them, instead of doing their work for them. Take the power of the silent sex scene in Bob Fosse's Lenny or the ending of Arthur Penn's Night Moves. Now obviously a completely dead soundtrack is an extreme... and one that must be executed with caution and precision. But even if the soundtrack isn't totally dead... even if there is dialogue and roomtone and general sound effects... filmmakers must not so easily rely on music! Take the scene in High Crimes where superstar lawyer Ashley Judd visits her accused-of-murder-by-the-military husband in prison. They talk and they cry. The conversation is decently written... or at least cleanly written. And the acting by Judd and Jim Caviezel is quite good. But sure enough Franklin or (I pray) Fox cannot leave well enough alone... apparently the audience is a bunch of brain dead sloths, who don't speak a word of English or have any understanding of human emotion, so we must be told exactly what to feel through an atrociously lame, over the top musical passage. This happens again and again in High Crimes and each time I was left with the unmistakable feeling that these scenes would be infinitely stronger without music.

My favorite living filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson has said that he wholeheartedly disagrees with the argument that a scene should be able to stand alone without its music. PTA feels that music is as integral to a film as its actors and that's like saying take away the actors and the scene should still work. His point is well taken but I think it's important that a distinction is made: if you find yourself putting music over a scene... question why. I know PTA always does. I know Scorsese does. I know Wes Anderson does. If it's just for enhancement, fine, great, fantastic. But if it's to make up for a fundamental flaw in the scene itself... ask yourself if there is any way that flaw can be solved without music. Re-cut the scene, delete it, reassemble the actors and reshoot, but PLEASE think of music as a last resort. Not a tool to fall back on when you're in trouble. I mean for God's sake, at the very least, always check if the damn scene is better left alone. They're crying? Okay, then no need for violins.

Back to High Crimes... God... this film is a waste of pixels. I don't even wanna write about it anymore. Suffice to say the only reason to see it is Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman's acting. Morgan Freeman actually plays against type as an alcoholic, liberal, has-been lawyer... the "wild card" as the writers love to have Freeman call himself every other scene... and is a beautiful thing to watch (as always). But he's still wasted, and so is Judd (and Judd will continue to be until she decides she doesn't need any more 8 figure paychecks).

And suffice to say there is the kooky sibling. And the witness with all the answers. And the quest to get that witness to tie up all the film's loose ends. And the questionable military authority figure. And the false moment of peril (used approximately 80 times) aka a character suspects they are being chased by a killer and it turns out to be the old lady next door...And of course, of course, of course, suffice to say there are the obligatory grainy flashbacks to "the foreign mission that got out of control."

A note about these flashbacks and Franklin's constant obviousness... a character is testifying on the witness stand... he makes a remark about the way the man on trial "tossed his gun back and forth like a hot potato" (or something to that effect -- I forget the exact quote)... CUT TO: grainy flashback of accused man running through the battlefield tossing his gun like a hot potato...

Now a friend of mine once told me this editing technique is his very favorite... and cited such examples of the first car-ride conversation in Hard Eight where John C. Reilly talks about someone's match lighting in their pockets and setting their pants on fire and then such an occurrence is quickly cut to... or in The Royal Tenenbaums when the narrator talks about how Royal Tenenbaum would always introduce his daughter as adopted, then CUT TO: flashback, Gene Hackman introducing Gwenyth Paltrow to a friend: "This is my adopted daughter Margot Tenenbaum." These are both brilliantly dry, comic comments and most importantly are supposed to be funny... but in High Crimes, when Franklin used the device in the context of a dramatic moment, literally half the audience erupted in laughter regardless.

The problem is twofold: one is that this editing technique should indeed be reserved for intentionally comedic moments (primarily), but more importantly, the problem is the very nature of High Crime's flashbacks themselves. Is anyone else sick to death of grainy and/or black and white flashbacks? I sure as hell am. Plus the way Franklin shoots and edits this flashback moment and the way Jim Caviezel acts it, combines to create something wholly dumb and over-the-top. If an important, dramatic testimony is being given, why interrupt the flow with a stupid cut that just tells us what we already know?

One last note: there is a character in High Crimes who has no more than twenty lines and yet is by far the most interesting character in the whole film (he's a guy who teaches people how to beat lie detectors). Well if a tiny, peripheral character is a film's most interesting... THIS IS A BAD SIGN. Very bad. It makes the audience question why the hell we're wasting our time watching a film about two lawyer archetypes we've seen since the dawn of cinema instead of a potentially original character study.

Let's hope when choosing their next projects, Morgan Freeman, Ashley Judd and Carl Franklin start asking some of these questions themselves.

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