Year:  1999 (V)                                               Release Date: July 6, 1999

Director and Writer: Rowdy Herrington

Starring: Cuba Gooding, Jr., Tom Berringer, Eric Stoltz

            This movie was made in a time when you had direct to video movies.  Today, it was on HBO and I want my money back, I want the time I spent watching it back, and I want the brain cells I lost.  Cuba Gooding, Jr. plays a disbarred lawyer who retreats to Key West and writes a book about the experience except he finds out he’s a horrible writer.  Trying to make money as a fishing guide, he meets an old man who gives him his manuscript to read.  After dying from a heart attack, Lawton Russell (Gooding) submits it as his own work and gets published and becomes a rich man only to find that the murders in the manuscript were real and described them with precise details only the murderer could have known.  Lawton then tries to prove his innocence with a detective (Berringer) in pursuit.

            Not the worst concept, but the plot holes were enormous.  After escaping from a house full of police and escaping again from five police cars, both on foot, Lawton never gets a wrinkle in his suit.  Going from New Orleans to Key West on a freight train and back again on the roof of a beer truck (I’m serious), he never needs a shower or a shave. He also walks around without even trying to change his appearance despite his likeness being on the back of a best selling book and in the news.  He cleverly covers his face with a newspaper or his hand and escapes notice in the two cities where he has homes.  Also, the worst southern accents I ever heard.

            Despite this, I did enjoy the filming locations.  Having spent time in both places, I enjoyed the visuals of two great cities.  I really liked the interiors of the Garden District homes in New Orleans pre-Katrina and the scene at Sloppy Joes in Key West, one of the greatest bars in the U.S.  But if you have a choice, go to the cities instead of watching this movie.

            The movie weakly explores lawyers representing clients who are guilty in criminal cases and just assumes lawyers who do so have sold their souls to the devil.  Never addresses any other proposition.  Maybe it’s the geek in me, but I would have enjoyed the debate.  Overall, do not recommend this but enjoyed the scenery.

One Gavel