High Crimes (PG-13, 2002)

Ashley Judd plays spirited and telegenic defense lawyer Claire Kubik. She feels confident that she is doing the right thing in freeing a man accused of rape by claiming that his rights were violated by a technicality. As she explains to the television cameras, "When the rights of any defendant are violated, we are all at risk until justice has been redressed." But when a bungled robbery attempt leads to a fingerprint check of their house, she discovers that there are some things she didn't know. For example, she did not know that her husband's name is really Ron Chapman (Jim Caviezel), that he was once a Marine, and that he is wanted by federal authorities for his part in a massacre in El Salvador. He is arrested by military authorities, and Claire is almost as disoriented by her unfamiliarity with the military justice system as she is by the unfamiliarity of the husband she thought she knew. But she swings into action. The lawyer assigned to Chapman is willing, but inexperienced. Claire hires a "wild card" lawyer (Morgan Freeman) who has "beat the Marines before and is hungry to do it again."

HIGH CRIMES is merely mediocre, an all-but-thrilless thriller of the "loved not wisely but too well" betrayed-woman genre. Freeman and Judd have a lot of chemistry, as we saw in the much better Kiss the Girls. But the script is at or below the level of the average Lifetime made-for-tv movie. Here's hoping they find a better one for their next movie together.