Presumed Innocent (1990) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

Presumed Innocent is a Hollywood thriller, but not a typical one. There are no chase scenes, nor explosions, nor gunshots, nor screaming, nor violence, nor outrageous red herrings. As thrillers go, it is the diametric opposite of Wild Things. If Wild Things were a pair of shoes, it would be bright red pumps with five inch stiletto heels. If Presumed Innocent were a pair of shoes, it would be some comfortable old Hush Puppies.

The plot concentrates on the procedural and political elements of a murder mystery, beginning after the murder has actually been committed. Harrison Ford plays a straight-arrow prosecutor whose boss, an elected D.A., assigned him to the investigation of one of their fellow prosecutors, a seductive and opportunistic female lawyer who had been using her sexual wiles to advance her career. Coming in the middle of a re-election campaign, the case has the potential to be politically lethal to the career of Harrison's boss, hence to Harrison himself, who is the hand-picked number two man in the office.

Ol' Indiana Jones tried to turn the case down, primarily because he was humping the living bejeezus out of the victim, despite his marriage to another woman. Worse than that, the victim had recently dumped Indy, thus making it reasonable to consider him a likely suspect. As the case developed, he was more than just a possible suspect. He was eventually brought to trial for the crime, at which point he really found out who his friends and enemies were. Some of the people he trusted turned against him for reasons which seemed insufficient. Some people he considered enemies turned out to be allies. Some people were loyal to him because they believed in him, and others remained loyal even though they thought he was guilty.

The trial progressed on the basis of standard court procedure, which ultimately neither proved nor disproved anything, as is typical in real courtrooms, where the matter of one's actual guilt or innocence is often less important than whether the police handled the evidence correctly, and who in the case is connected to whom. Indy's colleagues, the detectives, even the judge, lined up for and against him for reasons pretty much unrelated to whether he did it.

To make matters far more complicated, the victim in the case was everyone's lover, not just Indy's. In her sexual march to the top of her profession, she had crossed genitals with just about everyone in the history of the legal system, from Hammurabi to Hamilton Burger, including Indy's boss, as well as many other lawyers and judges related to this particular case. Ultimately, that meant that just about anyone in the courtroom, even the judge, might have been her killer by the same logic that got Indy indicted.

The plot revelations in the film are managed so that we are not sure of Indy's innocence, and if he didn't do it, we're not sure who might have. The ultimate explanation was interesting and appropriate. I'll give it a solid "yes" on my minimum requirements for a thriller: (1) I didn't predict the outcome, but (2) I was satisfied with the explanation, and (3) I might have figured it out if I had really paid attention to all the details.

Of course, those three criteria are merely the screening elements. The really important criteria with any type of film are interest and satisfaction. This film meets my expectations. I never thought of reaching for the fast forward because I got interested in what was developing and I didn't want to miss any details. It's a quiet film, but I stayed glued to the plot and got involved in the political machinations of the characters. I liked the fact that the thriller plot was atypically carried by quiet acting, a somber tone, and a minimum of hysteria and flamboyance. The characters are reasonably interesting, although the film concentrates more on procedure than on character development. If you like your thrillers filled with slam-bang action and lurid sex and violence, this isn't for you, but if you'd like to see a thoughtful insider's view of the legal system (the author of the source novel is lawyer Scott Turow), you just might want to give this one a look.