Robert J. Maxwell A SOUPCON OF SUSPICION.I gather this is a remake of a French film. That usually spells disaster, as in "Wages of Fear." In this case, it holds together pretty well, although I make that judgment without having seen the French original.Morgan Freeman is a captain in the police force in Puerto Rico and Gene Hackman is a very wealthy tax lawyer and celebrity. Hackman is wearing a tux and accompanying his incandescently beautiful trophy wife, Monica Bellucci, to a charity fund raiser when he is notified that Freeman wants to see him for "a ten minute chat" about some "irregularities" in the story he told police about having discovered the dead body of a pretty little girl.The interview takes up the rest of the movie, with occasional flashbacks and brief episodes of fantasy. It all begins in a friendly enough manner. "Well, Victor, you don't look much older." "Good to see you again, Henry." It doesn't take long for it all to turn sour for both of them. There is a good deal of evidence pointing to Hackman as the murderer, not just of the twelve-year old whose body he found, but that of a similar girl in a neighboring town. Hackman, cocky and pleased with himself at first, begins to worry, and for good reason. Freeman is anxious to pin the rap on him and be promoted for having solved two sensation killings.Hackman is confronted with evidence that he's lied to the police about points minor and major. Bit by bit, as Freeman digs into Hackman's married life and sexual proclivities, the suspect begins to sweat up a storm. His life is shredded more with each passing moment. The story betrays is Gallic origins when the two of them get "philosophical" about the nature of humankind -- the relative social value of money, beauty, youth, reputation, privacy, and so on. I don't mean to suggest that it's boring in any way because it's not. It's tense from the start and it just gets tenser until the resolution of the problem, accomplished by deus ex Kodak.A lot depends on the performances of the principals and they deliver the goods. Morgan Freeman, especially, drops the hammer on the role of the subtle but determined detective. There's another secondary detective present at the interrogation, Thomas Jane, who is unlike the carefully controlled Freeman, in that he flings wisecracks and insinuations freely at the suspect.Monica Bellucci is called in to either corroborate Hackman's evolving alibis or to contradict them. She's from north-central Italy, Umbria, but she looks Hispanic and her accent is indistinguishable from that of Puerto Ricans except perhaps to expert linguists. Hackman is thoroughly convincing as the increasingly sweaty murder suspect -- sometimes too convincing. In one scene, when he's supposed to indicate that he's hiding something, he practically turns the shot into a final exam in acting class. For just a few seconds he bludgeons the viewer with his overacting.I enjoyed it very much, although apparently some other reviewers did not.

Galina Under Suspicion (2000) is a re-make of a French film Garde à vue (1981) directed by Claude Miller and starring Romy Schneider, Michel Serrault, Lino Ventura and Guy Marchand. It was based on the British novel Brainwash, by John Wainwright. I did not see the French film simply because I can't find it but I've seen Under Suspicion more than once and enjoy it every time even though I know how it ends.As a thriller/mystery/crime investigation, Under Suspicion (2000) teases a viewer and more likely would leave a fan of the pure genre disappointed but as a psychological character study which uses the mystery and serial murders investigation as a device to explore the darkest places of human desires and relationships, it is very good. Besides, watching for almost two hours the duel of wills, intellects, and despairs between noble as always Morgan Freeman and exceptional Gene Hackman is a treat. The director's approach to narrative that allows the viewer to be placed along with Victor (Freeman) inside the flashbacks of Hackman's character, Hector, is interesting, unusual, and fresh, and adds to an uneasy and dark atmosphere of the forbidden and deeply hidden desires and fantasies. As great as they both are, for many years after I saw the film for the first time, it was the striking beauty of then relatively little known to the American viewers, Italian Monica Belucci that I remembered vividly. The film director, Stephen Hopkins wanted to cast Monica Bellucci after watching Malèna (2000) while on an overseas flight. I am glad he did. She did not get lost next to her celebrated partners in the film. I also think that moving the action to San Juan, Puerto Rico during the San Sebastian Street Festival that is celebrated every third week in January was a good idea. The carnival atmosphere of music, vibrant colors, and grotesque masks strikes the dramatic contrast with the harrowing devastating experience the main characters of the movie go through and the place in life they find themselves after the investigation is over. Will they ever forget?

read_the_silence My opinion about the story: 1. Freeman is just a simple detective, who has nothing left in his life but his job, so he puts everything into finding the killer. He has real reasons to suspect Hackman. Hackman finds the second victim, and normally he gives a statement, statement that the police HAS to check of course. Many thing do not add up, and the real suspicion starts when the car of Hackman had been trace to the place where/when first victim was killed. Fair enough I would say! Even if for Freeman is a very sensitive case, considering that Hackman was not only an attorney, but also a important figure in the island society, still Freeman is keen to find the truth, no matter who the killer is. 2. Hackman is NOT a paedophile! He is a normal guy, that felt deeply in love with this very young woman. Mind that they got together when she was in college, as he paid for her education. She was not 11 or 14 in college, was she? He loves enormously his wife, but the SICK person, in fact the only sick person in the story, is Chantal. She is extremely jealous, possessive, to the point of accusing him of having something for her sister daughter. He is just a simple 57 old guy, who never had his own kids, and of course he would feel tenure for the kids of others. Chantal suffers, besides of her unreasonable jealousy, she also suffers of a high level of selfishness. She would not have her own kids, just for a simple fact. She would lose Hackman attention and she would feel jealousy towards her own children. That i would say is sickness. 3.Hackman confess to 2 crimes he did not do for a simple reason. Years after years he tried to fight back all sort of accusations,including him liking little girls, accusations coming from the woman he loves profusely. Every second of his life he hopes that his wife, that he so much loves, will come around, realising that those accusations and jealousy are totally crazy... and then he ends up in the middle of this murder investigation. He is tired, he can't do it anymore, so he gave up! He gave up defending himself from his wife, not the police. In fact by his confection he is sending himself free from Chantal. Admitting all her accusation meant losing her, which was what he strongly fought against. 4. In the end Chantal has a moment of clarity, when her mind is cured again. She realised what she had done and she thinks of killing herself. Of course she is too selfish, self observed to go ahead with the jumping. But Hackman is free! Free of her! When she tried to approach him, considering that all he wished for and hoped for was for her to come back to him, he rejects her! HE IS FREE! Freeman realised that too! This is why maybe the name of the detective is FREEMAN... as the detective was the man who helped Hackman to become free again!!!! 5. Regarding Chantal sickness, well the explanation is simple. She knew Hackman since she was 11 years old, as he was her father friend! She lost her father when she was 14 years old, and Hackman took care of her, paid for her education... well, he became her father. Until the moment they became also lovers, the relationship should be clear.. and, this is explaining why she would feel jealousy towards little girls! She was not worried that Hackman will find a sexual attraction for a little girl at that particular moment! She was concern that if a little girl will fulfil Hackmam parental need, and will end up growing and becoming also a beautiful woman, then she has been replaced! Hackman was seen by Chantal both as father and as lover. And her only competition could only develop in a similar bound as hers with Hackman. First innocent parental love, which will grow into sexual attraction as the little girl will grow into a woman. Of course Chantal was a very confused woman, who needed professional help!

Bangell153 Did Henry Hearst rape and kill two young girls? That's the question occupying the whole of Under Suspicion.For nearly the entirety of its running time, the film is executed brilliantly. There is no action: it keeps the audience's attention through its intelligence, brilliant construction and the reliably excellent performances of Freeman and Hackman. We are not given definitive evidence, and many strange and suspicious things crop up that we yearn to find out about.This could well have been one of the greatest mystery films I've seen... Until the ending. The ending leaves the audience without an explanation - and not in a good way that lets the audience ponder. It's an ending that leaves you shouting at the screen for an answer.Overall, I'd recommend this film because it will keep you entertained and on the edge of your seat for more than an hour and a half. Just prepare yourself for an ending that will leave you wholly unsatisfied and rather annoyed.