Just Cause

Great acting, including Connery's, doesn't keep film from blowing up in filmmakers' faces.

There's no question that Sean Connery can lend heft to a movie just by taking part, and that's certainly the case with "Just Cause" (on which he is also listed as executive producer). And knowing that he squares off against Laurence Fishburne in an adversary situation, the audience might naturally expect fireworks.

Unfortunately, however, the fireworks are strictly in the film's first half. After that, things begin to sputter and fizzle, until, like the proverbial exploding cigar, everything ultimately blows up in the filmmakers' faces.

"Just Cause" begins with a prologue in a small, rural Florida town where Blair Underwood (TV's "L.A. Law") is arrested and tortured by a pair of cops (Fishburne being one of them) until he confesses to the murder of a little girl.

After the film's credits, the action shifts eight years forward, as we meet high-minded Harvard law professor Connery who is in a public debate with another pompous orator (George Plimpton), arguing the pros and cons of the death penalty. Connery is against it, has written books on the subject and in the end convinces Plimpton he is right (though what we hear seems superficial at best and unconvincing at worst).

After the debate concludes, Connery is approached by an elderly woman (Ruby Dee, at her most eccentric and feisty) who claims Underwood, her grandson, was railroaded and is innocent. And now that he's about to get the electric chair, she is asking Connery to get involved, investigate the case and, hopefully, save her grandson.

Though he hasn't practiced law in 25 years, Connery reluctantly takes the case and heads down to Florida, where he runs up against Fishburne — and just about everyone else in town. There is little hard evidence to convict Underwood, but everyone seems sure he did it.

Eventually, while meeting with Underwood in prison, Connery learns that the little girl may have actually been killed by another inmate there — a wacko serial killer (Ed Harris, who runs away with the picture, doing a "Silence of the Lambs" bit). He doesn't exactly confess, but, eventually, he uncovers evidence that seems to point in that direction.

Up to this point, "Just Cause" is entertaining and has some legitimate mystery going on. But once Connery's wife (Kate Capshaw), a former attorney herself, gets involved, and the script's twists and turns begin to pile up, things just get more and more outrageous. In fact, the plot machinations here become so contrived and the coincidences so bizarre that by the end, as the film threatens to turn into "Cape Fear," audience members will likely be scratching their heads.

Producer/director Arne Glimcher, who fared better with "The Mambo Kings," keeps things tense most of the way (though there are some confusing elements late in the film), but the screenwriters — Jeb Stuart ("Die Hard," "The Fugitive") and Peter Stone ("Mirage," "Arabesque") — are really off their game.

Still, the actors are certainly up for it, with great character turns by Harris and Dee, and solid lead performances by Connery (who sings at one point!) and Fishburne. (The presence of a large but underused supporting cast seems to indicate that the film has been heavily edited, especially when Chris Sarandon shows up and literally has nothing to do. Other supporting players with all-too brief roles include Ned Beatty, Kevin McCarthy and Hope Lange.)

"Just Cause" is rated R for considerable violence and gore, along with some profanity, a couple of vulgarisms and some brief male nudity.