the audience applauded

Overrated

A Major Disappointment

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Well I finally got around to watching Under Suspicion and I must say that the films' cat and mouse chase that was going on throughout the entire film actually did hold my attention.Gene Hackman plays a very wealthy tax attorney named Henry Hearst who is gainfully employed as a partner in his law firm named after him and he is living in Puerto Rico, married to a very young and attractive wife named Chantal played by Monica Bellucci. When two young girls bodies are discovered raped and murdered Henry Hearst becomes Captain Victor Benezet's prime suspect. The Captain is played by the venerable 2005 Oscar winner actor Morgan Freeman and he sets his sights on his prime suspect Henry Hearst with his equally ambitious Detective Felix Owens played by Thomas Jane who would like nothing better than to beat the crap out of this assumed pedophile rich tax lawyer Henry Hearst.Throughout the film which is a 110 minute on screen interrogation Captain Victor Benezet and Detective Felix Owens take turns interrogating the wealthy tax lawyer Henry Hearst divulging all of his deepest darkest secrets and fetishes throughout the film. Meanwhile Mrs. Hearst is behind the two way mirror during some of her husbands interrogation and confession which obviously is meant to embarrass this married wealthy couple in an effort to draw out of them who is responsible for murdering these two teenage girls.Ahhhhh, but just like all of us who crave that beautiful looking dessert or spicy pizza, and we gobble it up, once we have eaten it all, we are left empty and we realize too late that those were wasted calories and maybe we are left with nothing more than just some common heartburn and a reason for feeling we were fooled into eating that dessert, or that pizza that seemed to look so good.Such is the wasted time we have spent on watching Morgan Freeman for 110 minutes interrogate Gene Hackman only to realize that the end does not in this case justify the means. The ending was and is as cheap a dessert, or that pizza we were guilty of consuming, and we always seem to invariably ask ourselves "why did I do that?" If you read my review first maybe I can save you some wasted calories and about 2 hours of your time as the films end is just so disappointing that I asked myself "really now?" "The writers and director could only come up with this crap of an ending?"Well just like a cheap dessert or a spicy pizza that also will eventually turn in to nothing more and nothing less than a good crap so was Under Suspicion. I give it a 4 out of 10 rating and I suggest you stay away from this over rated film.

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).

to everything else already said about this film - which I gave a 7 out of 10 rating due to the outstanding performances by Hackman, Freeman and Bellucci (who here transcended her fairly squarely decorative role in ways I haven't witnessed her managing to do in any of her other roles, sorry to say, so far - !), despite detesting the directing (which I suspect was exacerbated by bad editing, to boot…) - I wish to add what I notice seems to be missing from almost all other reviews (pro & IMDb); the very real problem of reducing a person down by the process of police (or any official or organised) interrogation which can indeed result in a person credibly confessing to crimes NOT committed; not to make the claim that most of the inmates of the incarceration system confessed to crimes not committed, but high-profile, high pressure crimes can really become a sort of psychological pressure-cooker, perhaps in collaboration with a media circus, reducing wrong results - and thereby not only 'breaking' an otherwise OK or perhaps even decent & upright person caught in the wrong place @ the wrong time, but permitting the actual perpetrator to get away with an unspeakable &/or awful crime. Ironically, serial killers & sociopaths KNOW that, and so manipulating others in ways which will most likely result in this sort of thing IS their thing! (I recall there was a famous case of precisely this in England with a serial killer who started during the war, when getting away with murder was relatively easy, then through a series of elaborate manipulations, resuming his murdering while cunningly framing another for it afterward.) By way of a more simple example; a friend of mine's mother was once questioned by the FBI on the basis of a matter carried out by someone with her exact same name, which mistake revealed itself during the course of their conversation and so was corrected - but she said that by the end of the interview/interrogation, she herself was questioning whether she really was the person she and her family & friends knew herself to be, or the one they THOUGHT she was! Which is hilarious on the one hand, on the other hand it shows how when convinced persons in authority assert something with sufficient confidence, their conviction can be so compelling as to have unintended consequences.Obviously this movie revolves around the relationship of a very flawed couple caught up in a painful & toxic marriage, and a detective who is motivated by his own largely unspoken post-divorce demons, in addition to his genuine outrage over the crimes committed and concern for the public and other potential victims (justified, as he's unable to prevent a third crime - and as a direct result, could be argued, of taking up SO much time trying to pin the first two on the guy under suspicion and in his custody during the time of the 3rd crime…), and being - as already pointed out - really & truly a play, not a movie, it visits much (mostly murky!) subject-matter much more suited to staging than filming, IMO. But as-said, the acting is outstanding in this and worth watching for that, as well as perhaps this very pertinent and perhaps also primary point - which I really want to make, as I really think it matters. :)

Under Suspicion is a total mind f*ck of an investigation. The story and intrigue are powerful, and extremely well choreographed. It's so twisted and tight, with the right score, a good photography, and smooth editing, that by end you get to hate just about every character.Morgan Freeman, Gene Hackman, Thomas Jane, and Monica Bellucci are just perfect for their role, playing their assigned persona just right and on the edge.It's not for everybody, since its a harsh subject matter and no psychological punches are pulled as Hackman's character is harassed. Also beware, very little happen in this film, the game is all mental.I highly recommend it for the maddening asinine trip you'll get on.