Benefit of the Doubt (1993)

Touches You

Good concept, poorly executed.

Fantastic!

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Benefit Of The Doubt is a movie about a psychopath, done serving time for the murder of his wife, returns to avenge himself on the witness who put him away: his daughter. It stars Donald Sutherland, Amy Irving and Rider Strong. It marks the directorial debut for producer Jonathan Heap.In this suspense thriller, a woman wonders if she can trust her memory when her father returns from prison a very different man from the violent psychopath she remembers. Karen is a single mother who twenty years ago delivered the testimony that put her father Frank behind bars for the murder of her mother. While Karen has no doubts that Frank is guilty of the crime, the years have clouded her memory a bit and she doesn't recall all the events with complete clarity. Now that Frank has been released, he's returned to Karen's neighborhood and is going out of his way to ingratiate himself with Pete her son, and Dan her boyfriend. A furious Karen confronts Frank, but she discovers a father who is not the ogre she sent to prison but a calm, charming, well-spoken gentleman who seems to bear her no ill will. They discuss the death of Karen's mother and Frank begins to convince her that it was all a terrible accident. Frank begins to work his way back into Karen's life as he gradually cuts her off from her circle of friends; when Dan dies under mysterious circumstances, Karen thinks nothing of it, but Sheriff Calhoun wonders if Frank might have something to do with the crime. There's hardly a moment in the film when we can believe the events on a psychological level, or even on the level of a manipulative thriller. The performances are good. Sutherland is creepy as he recites his pious platitudes, and it's fun to see Irving in a down-home blue-collar role. Unfortunately, suspense is not the strongest suit as it is has a predictable screenplay. Too bad, because a more interesting movie might have resulted if one of the story's unrealized ideas had been used. That's the possibility that the Frank might, in fact, be innocent. As we meet him, he's being released on parole after serving a 22-year sentence for murdering his wife. The key testimony against him at the trial came from his daughter then a child, now a single mom working as a waitress in a strip club. Did Karen tell the truth in her testimony? The movie tries to build up evidence that she might have been "guided" by a defense attorney. Now, with Frank out and headed her way, she's in terror that he might strike again."I won't forget this," he told her as he was led off to prison.Since we know with some certainty that he was in fact guilty, the accuracy of her testimony is a blind alley. We know he killed, and we suspect he'll kill again. But think how much more involving the movie would have been if the first hour played it straight, pretending that Frank was unfairly framed, and that he is now prepared to forgive his daughter and start life again. That would make the movie's later developments truly frightening, instead of drearily inevitable. It could have been a great movie if the story had these smarts and subtlety instead of becoming clichéd that makes it an average movie. What a waste!!!!

"Benefit of the Doubt" features another "Creepy Grandpa" performance by Donald Sutherland, not unlike his character in "Panic". Sutherland is very good in both films, and is surrounded by excellent supporting actors, William H. Macy in "Panic", and Amy Irving and Graham Greene in "Benefit of the Doubt". Another plus is the beautiful desert setting, with magnificent red rock formations. Although the story is rather straightforward, the entertainment value is high. Grandfather is released from prison, and seeks relationship with estranged Daughter who helped convict him. Theodore Bikel's performance, as the district attorney is noteworthy also. Recommended. - MERK

Contemporary thrillers tend to get relatively poor reviews. These films are held to what I think is an unreasonably high standard. Admittedly, a genuinely good thriller is very hard to find these days. It's about the writing mainly. The story counts a lot, as does the suitability of the actors to this genre. It seems that the glorification of multimillion dollar production values, meaning mainly special effects, has become more important to the industry than good writing and characterizations. For whatever reason, movies like The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (original), Charley Varick, and The Getaway (the original) are a thing of the past. (Then again, there's the very good The Lincoln Lawyer.)Nowadays, all one can expect is the more or less artful use of derivative material. Standards, therefore, should change. Don't expect another Charley Varick. Benefit of the Doubt should satisfy those looking for a reasonably plausible story, well executed tension and of course a first rate villain. This movie delivers on all those fronts. Sure, characters sometimes behave unrealistically, but realism and plausibility are inessential to thrillers. Recall Hitchcock's accurate denigration of "the plausibles", i.e. those who undermine a thriller because of implausible elements. - Donald Sutherland gives us a masterfully characterized bad guy, yet another testimony to this fine actor's beautifully honed thespian chops. The movie did for me what an acceptable thriller should do: keep me interested and provide some genuine suspense. This film is nothing more and nothing less than a better than good enough popcorn movie.

**SPOILERS** The film "Benefit of a Doubt" is not all that bad if you just watch it for it's unintentional comedy that by far eclipse everything else in it. We see convicted murderer Frank Braswell, Donald Sutherland, released from prison-for good behavior- after serving 22 years for murdering his wife, Patricia Tallman. As we soon learn the reason Frank was convicted in the first place was his at the time 12 year old daughter Karen's, Amy Irving, eye witness testimony.Now a free man the first thing that Frank does is shoot right down to Cottonwood Arz. where Karen and her 12 year old son Pete, Rider Strong, lives. With Karen wanting to have nothing to do with him Frank makes himself more then available to both her and Pete by hanging around the house and trying to make himself useful. This strange and threatening behavior on Frank's part has Karen go to the local Sheriff Calhoun, Graham Green, to see what he can do-which is nothing-to keep her overbearing father out of both her hair and property.A things start to settle down a bit in the Braswell house with Frank finally being accepted, because of his folksy charm, by both Karen and Pete his true and sinister motives start to come to the surface. It's when Frank finds out that Karen's live-in boyfriend Dan, Chris McDonlad, is going to propose marriage to her that Frank's dark side starts to show. And it's that dark and murderous side that takes control of Frank for the rest of the movie!The crazed and maniacal performance put on by Donald Southerland-as Frank Braswell-is so down right bizarre and stupefying that it has to be seen to be believed! With his eyeballs popping out of his skull and sneering like the cat that just ate the canary Southerland creates one of the most laughable and outrageous villains in motion picture history. Even Amy Irving as Karen, as good an actress as she is, has trouble keeping a straight face when she's confronted by her severely mentally unbalanced dad in her scenes with him in the film. You soon start to wonder just who was on the parole board that deemed Frank fit to be allowed to live in a civilized society? The Three Stooges? Since even when he was supposed to be normal, early in the movie, Frank showed obvious signs of mental instability that even a freshman collage psychology student could have easily picked up!***SPOILERS*** We as well as Karen are made to think by Frank opening up his troubled and tortured heart, as well as big mouth, that all that he was accused of and convicted for was a plot hatched by the local D.A Gideon Lee, Theodore Bikel, to frame him. This line of BS on Frank's part also for a time convinced his daughter Karen, who's testimony put him behind bars, that she-being 12 year old and very impressionable-was brainwashed by D.A Lee to finger her dad in her moms murder. Even though Frank told her that momma, being dead drunk at the time, fell down a flight of stairs and broke her neck when she missed kicking him in his vital organs and lost her balance! The truth of what Frank did as it later came out, in Karen's repressed memory, was far worse then even what she D.A Lee and Frank's good friend Sharrif Calhoun, who always maintained that Frank was innocent, could have imagined or dreamed up in their wildest and darkest fantasies!