"Under Suspicion" (2000) - Movie Review

Interrogation room and a possible suspect. A rough cop and a reasonable cop. This is something which has been witnessed and used astonishingly in lot of films and TV shows. “The Usual Suspects” broke many barriers with respect to the story telling. The fact of “telling or seeing is believing” fools everyone. It is also a firm fact put forth my Kurosawa in “Rashomon” and S. Balachander in tamil movie “Andha Naal”. So bearing everything from those great movies, it is a great deal of work to bring in the element of surprise and providing a satisfactory ending. “Under Suspicion” makes it out there, may be not the daring surprise but definitely a notable one.

The film is about the interrogation of a possible strong suspect for two murders happened separately in the island of Puerto Rico. Henry Hearst (Gene Hackman) is a tax attorney and a very rich one too. He is living along with his trophy wife Chantal (Monica Bellucci) who is young compared to him. The film introduces that Henry is getting ready to address a fund raising party when the Captain of the city, Victor (Morgan Freeman) calls him for clarifying to tie the loose ends. Across the street of the party is Victor’s office and hence Henry drops by. Victor knows Henry and seems to be a short routine for Henry, but Victor has some unanswered questions with him. Henry is the prime witness for a crime scene a day before. He found a young girl lying dead while he was jogging. As the questioning progresses, it is evident that Henry is hiding something. Henry seems to continuously alter his story and this is good enough to create more suspicion over Henry for Victor and the hot headed Detective Owens (Thomas Jane). Hence the further movie illustrates the deepest secrets of Henry and the relationship tangled with his wife.

The film marks some nice story telling. Having Victor present at the location Henry or Chantal narrating him along the way is guiding and novel. By this way they ensure that what Victor sees is what the audience sees too. A movie of this kind is run by the performance. It is Gene Hackman all the way. The character of Henry is suspicious, authoritative, weak, embarrassing and at times lovable too. This is the character that is sexually frustrated and does not want to be known that way. He has a reputation to keep and faces to smile. But beneath this pride seeking rich man is also a soul aging and realizing the fact of it. He wants to make much use of it. At the same time, he shows some of his sides which are clandestine, for a reason. And also good enough for him to commit those crimes. This oscillation between the guy who is a possible killer and one who has been terribly misunderstood makes the movie interesting enough till the end.

Morgan Freeman has done so many cop roles that I am getting tired of it. But the Victor here is not a great skilled person as he always does. He is a very ordinary and diligent cop who wants to catch the killer and get some sleep. He is not been shown neither as extremely clever nor as a hard and an uptight captain with some unexplained hunches. He is a good guiding leader to his Detective. He knows the guy out here over the tables. He knows to tap the right buttons to bring in the truth. His character is to assure everyone that this interrogation is going at the direction desired with proper respect of integrity and clarity. The story demands the authenticity of the interrogation to be true enough which can be sole factor of justification.

There are some presumed notions while watching a movie of this kind. We want to know the killer and everything sums up in the end with point detail explanation. Director Stephen Hopkins played it very well for and against to make the viewers guessing. The film does leave with unexplained answers but it is left to interpretations. Because it is not alone about a sick twisted killer but about a relationship put into enormous strain. It is also about sacrifice or may be betrayal. It is also about the fact of life on how assumptions and guess work fools every one. What Kurosawa said in “Rashomon” is re-iterated in a very convincing manner, that “It's human to lie. Most of the time we can't even be honest with ourselves.”