Under Suspicion (2000)

Best movie ever!

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

This tense thriller is basically a two-hander between two of the finest character actors of our age: Hackman and Freeman are both flawless in this slow-burning drama, really building and bringing their intense characters to life, and it's safe to say that the film wouldn't be what it is without them. The story is simple yet complicated, in the best possible sense: it focuses on a straightforward detective interrogation yet the back story unwinds piece by piece as the film progresses, sucking you in deeper and deeper until the inevitable twist ending. Supporting actors are also decent; Thomas Jane reveals the intensity that won him the titular role in THE PUNISHER, whilst Monica Bellucci is hands-down one of the sexiest actresses AND characters ever put on screen.Hackman leads the way with his sympathetic turn as a high-profile attorney with a dodgy background, whilst Freeman lets Hackman grab the acting honours, respectfully standing back and letting him take over. The direction by Stephen Hopkins is VERY good, and there are some neat tricks, especially with Freeman & co. appearing in Hackman's flashbacks – you'll have to watch to see what I mean. In the end, UNDER SUSPICION is an intelligent, suspenseful nail-biter that may be unpleasant and disturbing in places, but'll make you think for hours afterwards.

This was a decent movie but i can understand why some people didn't like the ending as it seemed rushed and could have been better. However, this movie is interesting in the way it depicts the demons of the average man. A successful old man who is married to a woman he clearly doesn't deserve and thinks he is entitled to the world. She knows he is a pedophile and therefore doesn't want him to touch her so they have an estranged marriage, while he goes about looking for prostitutes which are the only women who won't reveal his abusive nature and that he actually likes little girls. He thinks it's OK because they are prostitutes and so he can pretend that they are not real girls. When becoming a suspect of such gruesome murders and rapes of little girls he is clearly sickened by it at first, but as we dig deeper his real thoughts come out and we discover that this rich, intelligent, subtle man could easily be the monster that he is being accused of being. The idea of raping and murdering children is not so far-fetched when we know what he has been doing, and we become aware of the fine line between going to prostitutes, where a man can relieve his gruesome nature and get away with it, and actually killing and raping. The only problem is the ending when his wife actually seemed to have felt remorse because she thought he was guilty. Makes no sense after his atrocious behaviour, cheating and attraction to 13 year old girls, she should have run the other way. Overall it was a nice film worth the time, good acting (apart for Thomas Jane).

*Spoilers aheadThis movie is amazing. There are almost no flaws in it. The acting is brilliant by all parties(including Monica Bellucci, and i only point this out because some reviewers wrote she was mainly "eye candy"). All the main characters are flawlessly played. The plot, scenes, the zoom-ins the suspenseful atmosphere created by the director and the camera.. As far as detective movies go this is one of the best of all times. Yes, of all times and believe me I have seen my share of movies. Many complain the ending is weak but IMO they don't see the whole picture. Other reviewers say that Henry loses character or that the ending is not surprising or climatic enough...IMO what this movie presents to us is the slow pealing and pressure that can be applied to a person and what it might make him do and parallel to that the complexities of relationships, especially the somewhat eccentric ones. Henry is first presented as an elegant and powerful figure but than his humanity is slowly revealed and he is shown as a regular person with many "flaws". There is nothing really to say about most of the movie because it is almost perfectly executes all perfectly does all that is expected of such a movie. In the ending Henry does not lose character or is just pressured into confessing. He is of course under great stress because of all these insinuations about him and all his secrets being revealed but the point is that at the end he is mostly concerned about what his wife thinks of him and her loyalty or disloyalty to him. This is why he confesses, he even says it right till the end, that he can't believe she thinks he did it, and after his confessions and after Morgan freeman says he is not guilty he stares at the mirror, knowing she is there and gives her a sign saying "ha! you see I'm innocent how could you think i did it you should be ashamed". If you weren't paying attention watch the last scenes before his confession and after and you will see what I mean. The point of the movie was not how he was broken by the copse, lost all sense and confessed of something he did not not. The ending was just an even more in depth look at the relationship between Henry and his wife. At the end the main character loses all hope in the marriage and strikes the final blow by testing his wife and seeing how she fails the test. the final scenes is him rejecting her completely and thereby supposedly ending their relationship.

Great performances do not, of themselves, make a great film. Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman, great actors, deliver fine, nuanced performances, and Tom Jane and Monica Bellucci also do very well in this rather low key thriller which has almost disappeared off the filmographies of all concerned.I said, "thriller", but that is part of the problem here. The pursuit of Hackman's attorney as prime suspect in the paedophile murders of young girls in San Juan, and the subsequent discovery of elements of his character and his relationships with Freeman's police chief and Bellucci's trophy wife appear, at first sight, to be the substance of a thriller, and maybe they are. But the film does not conclude as a thriller might be expected to.It is strange how much the lack of a satisfactory resolution can have a bearing on one's enjoyment of a film. The last five minutes here left me scratching my head at what had just happened and why. And my inability to accept the conclusion - specifically (spoiler) Hackman's decision to admit the accusation against him - devalued what came before.This film did not work for me.