MovieChat Forums > Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (2009) Discussion > Why this movie could have been great!

Why this movie could have been great!

posted 13 years ago by standrkm
1 reply | jump to latest

It had great potential but it f'd it all up.

Firstly Michael Douglas is way underutilized. It also escapes realism a bit and goes into a fantasy, almost like two films in one. It has some weird edits and stuff too. The very end of the film is where it lost all that potential, the final nail in the coffin. Instead of the twist (murder in the park) it should have showed how Douglas got convicted and how he handled his defense in the courtroom, it would have been awesome. But the writers and director must have got scared or something.

I actually watched fractured right befor ethis and it was a lot better. Anthony Hopkins has to be the scariest and most evil actor ever. Anyway check it out, it's pretty good.

"Stalin was responsible for the Katyn Massacre, that's 22,000 officers and university graduates murdered in the woods."

[–] joshuayeary 13 years ago

I agree, this could have been really good, but they just didn't pull it off. I noticed the strange editing and pacing, but the acting is what killed it. Douglas and Jones were the only one who acted really well. The guy and girl weren't horrible, although they did over act a little. The worst though was just about anyone else with a speaking line. The woman at the bank, the two computer nerds, her friend she met up with in the park, they were all incredibly horrble actors.