Just Cause (1995)

Ruby Dee entreaties Harvard professor Sean Connery to come out of retirement from the law to investigate her grandson Blair Underwood’s conviction for the rape and murder of a young white girl. Once down to Florida, Connery must contend with racist, brutal cops, his own wife’s connection to the case, and serial killer Ed Harris. I’d seen negative reviews of this that I couldn’t understand. The first half is rather compelling with Connery dealing with the aforementioned issues while also putting together the facts of the case. Then in the second half, it gets bad, really bad. Every single character suddenly acts opposite of how they’d been portrayed through the earlier parts of the film, except Ruby Dee because she’s criminally underused by that point, and what could have maybe been a compelling courtroom climax instead commits to the dumbest timeline.