Double jeopardy - 1999

Well, if you shut your brain it is actually entertaining, like most of these thrillers. The actors are ok, the making follows all the usual steps seen in every other chasing-movie. The usual entertainment is there, yes, but honestly the story is so far-fetched that if you think about it for a second you may have difficulty in keep watching. The story is very simple, as it often is in these movies: Libby is married to Nick and has a little son, Matty. When the husband disappears and she’s found covered in blood with a bloody knife in her hands, she’s charged with murder and convicted. During a phone call to her son, she hears him say “dad” and is from now on sure that Nick’s still alive and responsible for her incarceration. In prison she’s told that the law doesn’t allow for her to be charged twice for the same crime, so if he’s still alive she can kill him in front of a million people and nobody could do anything about it. After six years she’s granted parole and immediately starts looking for Nick, also trying to outrun her parole officer looking for her. She travels around the US and finally finds him, kills him, and is freed of all charges and then she goes to her son’s school and he remembers her, they hug and it’s a happy ending.
Now, should we take that second to think about it? 
Maybe it makes sense and I think it doesn’t only because I don’t know American laws properly, in that case if anyone could explain it to me, that would be nice. 
It seems to me though that she was convicted because with Nick’s death she would inherit his two-million life insurance policy, which means that they think she premeditated the murder, but in that case, would she really be granted parole after only six years? Really? For premeditated murder??
And if they convicted her of manslaughter, like she was alone with him and saw a chance and acted on it, then the whole ‘double-jeopardy’ thing blows itself, because the premeditated murder would be a different charge. 
Also: 
Husband and wife go alone on a boat trip and one night she wakes up to find that she’s alone, covered in blood, and there’s blood everywhere; she follows the blood trail like in shock, and picks up the bloody knife a second before the coast guard approach her boat. Someone might say “why did she pick up the knife!!” but that could be attributed to shock. Still, why did she wake up in that exact moment? How come the coast guard arrived at that exact moment, if nobody alerted them? And if someone did, who was it? Plus, jail must have totally changed her personality: before she was a woman who walked like in a trance because of the shock of waking up and seeing blood on her and around, and later she had the strength to shoot, to plan carefully, to avoid being caught...
The body is not found, so Nick is declared dead and she’s charged with his murder. Can they do that?
In prison she finds two women who encourage her and help her with ‘good’ advice, and never has any trouble. There are no fights and no bullies in this prison, and she can exercise as much as she wants.. Wow, not the tough prison you usually see in movies huh? And it was a place for serious criminals too, murderers! 
Libby asks her friend Angie - who is also Matty’s teacher - to adopt Matty because he’ll be without mom and dad and she doesn’t want him in the system, makes sense. Still, after a while Angie disappears with the child. Libby tracks her down with a phone call, and hears her little Matty calling “dad” before the line is cut. From that moment on she’s sure that Nick is alive and living with Angie and Matty. She tries to alert the insurance company, who actually should be interested in the chance to keep the two millions, but they don’t even consider her. She’s told in prison that any chance of a new trial would take years, so she just does her time. Well, at least part of it.
They tell us that six years have passed, and her boy is now eight years old. She has a parole-hearing, and it is granted: wow, so in America you only do six years for murdering your spouse? 
Once she’s out, she’s supposed to find a job, keep quiet, and report every night for curfew hour at her parole officer. She has no intention of doing anything of the sort, and goes straight out looking for Nick and for Angie. She goes to the school but a woman tells her that she can’t give her Angie’s address because it would be traumatic for the child to see his mother again... excuse-me, what?!?
Libby breaks into the school at night and finds the address, but is caught by local cops and given to her p.o. again. He wants to take her back, hand-cuffing her to the car, but she manages to almost get free: how? by crashing her car into the other cars parked in front and behind her on the ferryboat, without anyone hearing a thing, even causing a car to fall in the water without anyone noticing. When finally he sees what she’s doing and manages to get in the car, she drives it into the water so he’s forced to free her of the handcuffs or she’d drown. Once freed, she takes his gun and swims away, hitting him on the head in order to escape. He’s saved while she swims back to shore and disappears. 
Travis is now in trouble because he lost her, it seems like he lost that job, and yet he starts a big chase around the States intending to find her... why? 
She peacefully goes to her mother who gives her a lot of money that she kept under the potato plants, for some reason. Maybe it was too early for her mother’s place to be surveilled? Maybe nobody else but Travis is looking for her? It looks like he’s not even supposed to go after her, so the plan would be for nobody to look for her??
Libby finds out Angie’s new address - how did she know her social security number? Even if it was written on the paper she took at the school, even if it was not taken from her or maybe she memorized it, doesn’t the number change if you change your identity?? 
She’s no more Angie Green but Riker; unfortunately it turns out she died four years ago, and Libby thinks it wasn’t an accident but Nick killed her. Obviously, what was Angie expecting from someone like that, pure eternal love??
She finds the article that covers the ‘accident’ and recognizes a Kandinski painting, so asks a gallery who sold that specific painting and finds Nick’s new identity. 
She goes to his hotel, and ‘buys’ him at a bachelor auction maybe for charity for like 10.000 dollars, which is a lot, but I guess she thought that if somebody else won him she wouldn’t have the chance to speak to him alone..
Anyway, she gets close to him and tells him that she only wants her son back. Travis found her so she goes away promising to call the next day. When she does, he says he’ll meet her with Matty, then he points a kid at her and she follows him believing him to be Matty, although there’s no reason why her son should hide from her, not speak a word.. he’s just a kid Nick paid. Nick hits Libby’s head and when she’s unconscious he hides her into a coffin. He leaves her alive, in perfect old-James-Bond-movie-style, to die in her own time.. and he also leaves her her gun!
She gets out and this time Travis gets her, but it’s okay because now he believes her and wants to help her. Together they confront Nick, saying that they don’t want to kill him (of course not, they’re the heroes of the movie, they’re supposed to be good, better, honest....), what they want is for him to go to prison charged with her murder - another one without corpse, but this time with a taped confession.
The first moment they turn their backs Nick grabs his own gun and shoot Travis in the shoulder. He overpowers her and is about to kill her when Travis jumps on it and they fight - some movies make it look like bullet wounds are not that big deal after all... - then Nick is about to kill Travis this time but Libby shoots him twice, killing him. 
Next scene, they’re outside and an ambulance is taking care of Travis. He tells her that she can’t go yet, she must come with him, where her name will be cleared and she’ll be free...
The very last scene is the two of them driving to Matty’s school so she can finally meet him. Despite thinking earlier that Matty was that stranger boy, now it only takes her a look and she finds her son among all those boys playing ball. She calls his name, and he remembers perfectly who she is - good thing he has a good memory then - and they hug, and the movie ends before anyone has a chance to explain to Matty that he found a mother again but lost a father instead, because he thought his mom was dead but surprise surprise she’s here alive and well, but dad is now history. 
I’m sure there are more absurdities to point out but right now this is what comes to mind.
Ashley Judd did rather well as Libby.
Tommy Lee Jones in yet another fugitive-role: this time his p.o. is a bit more funny and less secure.
Bruce Greenwood does a good job in being totally disagreeable as the hideous husband.
Annabeth Gish is barely present. Her Angie has only a few small scenes of no real consequence.
ITA colpevole d’innocenza