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List Price: $12.98 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 36522
Released: June 22, 1999 |
| Our Price: $2.89 |
| Used Price: $0.67 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
A law professor is drawn into appealing the case of a deathrow inmate who may have been railroaded into a conviction by vindictive cops.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 8-FEB-2005
Media Type: DVD
Description of Just Cause (Snap Case):
Just Cause is a film that relies on phony plot twists and steals openly from any other thriller that it can remember. If there was a drinking game requiring players to drink during every cinematic "homage," you'd be tanked after Just Cause's first 45 minutes. Take one case of racial injustice, place it in an exotic, exquisitely photographed location (the Florida Everglades), and bring in an outsider, played by a bankable star, to save the day. Make sure nothing appears as it seems. Add a couple of plot twists, some over-the-top character actors (Ed Harris, shamelessly riffing on Hannibal Lecter), stir, and serve. The big name in this case is Sean Connery, who plays a Harvard law professor summoned to the swamps by an apparently innocent death row inmate (Blair Underwood), who swears he didn't rape and kill that 11-year-old girl. He says he confessed because maverick psycho-cop Tanny Brown (Laurence Fishburne) made him play a solo game of Russian roulette. He says his Serial-killer neighbor on death row (Harris) committed the crime. Connery buys it, the audience buys it, and how could they not? Director Arne Glimcher (who made the lackluster Mambo Kings) coerces everyone with simplistic plot manipulations. Characters are given no depth, and the actors are pawns moved about like pieces on a Clue gameboard. --Dave McCoy
Just Cause (Snap Case) Reviews:
SEAN CONNERY AND OTHERS 
2009-11-13 - Sean Connery does his customary highly professional job as the Harvard Law professor who is called in to review the case of a man convicted of murder, sentenced to death eight years previously. The sentence is to be carried out in the near future. In a flashback we are all made aware of the evidence which makes his confession and conviction invalid. Laurence Fishburne, as the sheriff and one of the interrogators in the eliciting of the confession is almost stereotypically over the top, as is his deputy. In fact, while the remainder of the cast work competently, only Blaire Underwood has a chance to look good as the convicted killer.
While the film is reminiscent of others in the genre, Connery is so good as the law professor investigating the case, that he holds the production together. Most should find it sufficiently diverting to overlook flaws and key in on the puzzle and the lead characters. A decent though not excellent film.
Sean Connery
2009-11-12 - I really like Sean Connery and I believe to my depths in the fight against racial opression.
Unwatchable and not worth spending a cent on! 
2009-09-27 - Don't waste your time!
This movie is terrible- Sean tries to save it but unlike most of his work, this movie has virtually nothing to recommend it! The only good thing is a few [less then 5] minutes of prety everglade pictures and a feisty grandma!
Do not waste your time with this clunker!!!
I found myself trying to turn it off several times and now strongly wish I'd followed those impulses as I feel as it I wasted almost 2 hours of my life. The first two thirds of the movie is spent with one of the most unrealistic view of the judicial system that Ive had the misfortune of seeing recently. Frankly, Law and Order is more realistic and often has a better plot and better writing!
It makes presumptions that make it look easy to get out of jail when we know its not. The last third is spent wishing the bad guy would just win so you can get to the end. There is no surprise at where this movie takes you and it must have been written by a neo-nazi or white supremacist.
The bad guys motive is so undeveloped that it put this movie into the racist catalog. Is this perhaps an understandable revenge[against a character so unsympathetic I was rooting for it's death]? Or was the motive a psycho-serial killing? The answer: both- is what makes this a truly rancid turkey!
One of the best stories and best casts I've ever seen 
2009-02-09 - Eight years ago, Bobby Earl (Blair Underwood) was sentenced to death for killing a little girl. His 'confession' was extracted in about the most brutal manner I think they allowed on film at that time. Officer Tanny Brown (Laurence Fishburne) plays the cool Black Southern cop who took that confession.
Just as Bobby is about to die Evangeline Earl (Ruby Dee) contacts Paul Armstrong (Sean Connery) an opponent of the death penalty and retired lawyer, for help. Armstrong takes the case, despite strong misgivings and comes to the Southern town where Earl once lived.
He encounters anger and opposition. Understandable, since the murdered little girl was very popular and a friend of Tanny Brown's young daughter as well.
He goes to the prison to meet Bobby Earl and Blair Sullivan (Ed Harris), a serial killing psychopath. The plot twists as both men work Armstrong for their own purposes.
I've seen "Just Cause" several times and each one, I see more. Moreover, the hair still rises on the back of my neck when I watch. It's a strong story, well acted, and suspenseful. "Just Cause" will leave you thinking for days to come.
Rebecca Kyle, February 2009
Just how bad is the system for black people?
2009-02-08 - In this movie the question seems to be "How evil is evil?"
When the police in a local Floria town beat and torture a confession out of a young black man, he asks his grandmother to see a noted Harvard professor and get his help.
The complications start about there and involve a mass murderer.
It ain't over until it is over,
but the question still remains, how many black people confess in small Florida towns just to stop the torture?
