Apparently it's a true story taken from a book, but I never read it, and honestly I watched this movie for two simple reasons: Clint Eastwood and Kevin Spacey, and if I'll ever watch it again it will be because Kevin Spacey is fantastic, well, as he always is :-)
John Cusack is not bad at all, but he kinda looks always the same, he's a bit expressionless in my opinion. At some point I bestowed on him the feelings he ought to be feeling, because his face didn't give out any clue. He had the same look when he talked to Lady Chablis and when he attended the trial and, long story short, always.
Still Cusack was okay, I sort of thought it was ok for his character.. but nothing more than ok.
Spacey, on the other hand, was great, amazing as always.
The story:
New York writer John Kelso (Cusack) comes to Georgia to attend one of rich James Williams (Spacey) famous parties and then write about it. Maybe it was because his wife had left him, I don't know, but he looked rather low, and watching him at the Christmas party I felt as if he didn't even want to be there.
When he's alone with Jim suddenly a crazy boy enters: Billy Hanson (Jude Law) is already drunk and demands money from Jim, who refuses, and threatens him with a broken glass bottle before going away. After the party ends and all the guests have left the house, John notices many police cars in front of the house and hears they have come because Jim has shot Billy dead. He's curious, I guess he had been fascinated by Jim enough to care about this, or maybe he was already thinking only of the great story he could get out of it, it's not clear, anyway he easily walks in, no policeman stops him, and he hears Jim's story to the police: Billy came back even more stoned and drunk, they had a loud quarrel then Billy tried to kill him shooting twice at him, so Jim took his gun and shot him repeatedly until he was dead.
John believes it, and works the case to gain material for his book, giving Jim's lawyer all the information he manages to find. It's a difficult trial, Jim seems in a very bad position after the police and the doctor's testimony, but the combined efforts of John and the lawyer bring down all those proofs. At first it looks like he might be convicted only because he had a homosexual relationship with Billy, but honestly in the end that detail was not so important; a thing that didn't make sense to me is the scene when Jim tells John 'the truth', that Billy tried to shoot him but didn't because the gun was blocked ( or however you say that) so he prevented him from trying again by shooting him in the chest, then after Billy fell on the floor he shot him again twice until he was sure he was dead. John is shocked, and notices how this means that Jim lied to the police and to everybody else saying Billy shot at him twice, and now the absurd part: Jim says he prefers to be accused of false testimony than of murder, which is an obvious thing, yes, but quite stupid in this case, because if he reveals that story, he will be concicted of murder, of course he would be since he just described a cold blooded murder, and to hell with the pretty self-defence "I was afraid for my own life" story. He just declared that he stood over Billy's wounded body and shot him twice with the intent to kill! So what the hell did he mean saying "better false testimony than murder", as if that would assolve him from the murder charge?? That was absurd, but at the same time the following scene was great, when his lawyer came in telling him they are about to win because he has proof of how the police lied and messed up and Jim looks at John, and in Jim's eyes there's everything, the whole 'you know now I can't tell that truth anymore' is in one single look and John will ever remain the only one to hear that story. Kevin Spacey is a truly amazing actor, honestly I think that if someone else had played Williams I wouldn't have liked it at all, because many things felt wrong to me. The absurd scene above; the amount of time Lady Chablis had: it was entertaining, yes, but the scene at the debutant's dance was too long it stopped to be and became boring instead. She was funny and looked stunning in those dresses, but her character was not so important to justify so much time screen; the love story between John and Mandy looked rather plain and useless. I would have done without it with pleasure. What purpose did it serve? To show at the end that he was loved after all? Well, the other side of the coin then is that he was right before feeling that nobody loved him if it's necessary her role.. no, I think they put the love story because apparently it's some kind of unwritten rule that there must always be one, the public demands it, blah blah blah, but I'm of a different opinion: if something is useless, cut it: even more so since internet comments say it was invented, not part of the original story.
The voodoo woman was excessive... but maybe this is a cultural thing I can't understand.
The ending is very biblical, with justice coming for Jim. He has a heart attack in the same room where Billy died, and Jim sees Billy's corpse look at him and smile an evil smile of satisfaction. This scene was good, that smile was really chilling.
There is also Michael Rosenbaum in the movie, in the role of Billy's friend George Tucker, and I almost didn't recognize him with so much hair :lol:
I like Rosenbaum a lot, he's a good actor and I love his voice.
Definitely not my favourite Eastwood film, but I'll probably watch it again exclusively for Kevin Spacey, my favourite actor, always amazing, his face, his hands, his acting, his voice, all perfectly combined. Fantastic.
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