Just Cause

An intelligent and riveting courtroom thriller. [16 Feb 1995]

Just Cause is an entertaining if overwrought death-row thriller built on the pros and cons of the capital punishment debate, and it owes most of its appeal to the presence of Sean Connery. [17 Feb 1995, p.03]

By the end of Just Cause, you’ll be wondering if the world really needed a second remake of Cape Fear. But its first two thirds are tense if not exactly taut, and Fishburne’s performance is a lesson in how a truly inspired actor can breathe quirky life into a tired cliché.

Neither conveying the flavor of the swampy South nor juicing the story's murky undercurrents with compositional correlatives, Glimcher's framings and pacings are disappointingly flat, coagulating finally in a batch of cliched action gumbo. [13 Feb 1995]

The plot falls with a thud, but the movie is surprisingly involving owing to performances by Connery, who is always an unfaltering standard of honesty and truth; by Fishburne, who has to flip-flop his meanness for frustrated indignation in the end; and by Harris, who actually seethes so hard the veins stand out on his bald skull.

If the movie had been about Sullivan it would have kept its viewers awake nights. But audiences for Just Cause will be able to sleep soundly, perhaps even catch a few winks in the theater.

A slow-moving legal thriller that fills the many idle moments with scenes plucked from a random selection of Hollywood standards. [17 Feb 1995, p.52]