***SPOILERS*** Clever made for TV movie involving a top defense attorney Arthur Jamison, Anthony Hopkins, trying to figure a way in "off" his annoying and blackmailing wife Louise, Blythe Danner, and make it look like either an accident or break-in murder. We get to see the well laid plans of Arthur in action at the beginning of the film as he set up his alibi and then goes through with murdering his wife Louise in their San Francisco mansion.
It's then that we see that Authur was only doing all this, murdering Louise, in his mind as he together with his alter ego or double, Donegan Smith, debate how to plug all the gaps in his murder plan. It's later that a new ingredient is added to the mix, or movie, with Jackie Willis, Swoosie Kurtz, who shows up unexpectedly at the Jamison Mansion! Jackie wants to know if the Jamisons have the key to their next door neighbors, the Starks, home. Jackie was to water the Starks, who are away on vacation, plants and lost the key to their house.
As the movie starts to unfold it becomes apparent that Jackie isn't just an innocent bystander in this bizarre murder plot but one of the main characters in it! In fact she's both Arthur's mistress as well as Louise's co-conspirator in a murder plot to "off" her unsuspecting husband!
Even though the movie goes in and out of sub-plots in how both Arthur and his wife Louise plan to murder each other it's Jackie who holds the key to how the crime will be both committed and covered up. Playing both sides to her advantage Jackie knows, by the skillful cover-up of her relationship with the Jaminsons, that in the end no matter who of the two wannabe murders succeed she'll alway have an alibi in not being connected at the murder scene.
There's also Arthur's double, or conscience, who gives him, as well as in the audience, a free lesson in the workings of law that even the very best law schools, costing as much as $25,000.00 a semester in tuition, will have a hard to to match. You learn so much about the in's and out's of criminal law in the conversations between Arthur and his double, as well as with Louise and Jackie, that you'll easily be able to pass the bar exam without as much as a sweat!
****SPOILERS**** The movie ends as it began but with the opposite results which shows that the smartest and most thought out plans to murder someone don't always work out!
It's then that we see that Authur was only doing all this, murdering Louise, in his mind as he together with his alter ego or double, Donegan Smith, debate how to plug all the gaps in his murder plan. It's later that a new ingredient is added to the mix, or movie, with Jackie Willis, Swoosie Kurtz, who shows up unexpectedly at the Jamison Mansion! Jackie wants to know if the Jamisons have the key to their next door neighbors, the Starks, home. Jackie was to water the Starks, who are away on vacation, plants and lost the key to their house.
As the movie starts to unfold it becomes apparent that Jackie isn't just an innocent bystander in this bizarre murder plot but one of the main characters in it! In fact she's both Arthur's mistress as well as Louise's co-conspirator in a murder plot to "off" her unsuspecting husband!
Even though the movie goes in and out of sub-plots in how both Arthur and his wife Louise plan to murder each other it's Jackie who holds the key to how the crime will be both committed and covered up. Playing both sides to her advantage Jackie knows, by the skillful cover-up of her relationship with the Jaminsons, that in the end no matter who of the two wannabe murders succeed she'll alway have an alibi in not being connected at the murder scene.
There's also Arthur's double, or conscience, who gives him, as well as in the audience, a free lesson in the workings of law that even the very best law schools, costing as much as $25,000.00 a semester in tuition, will have a hard to to match. You learn so much about the in's and out's of criminal law in the conversations between Arthur and his double, as well as with Louise and Jackie, that you'll easily be able to pass the bar exam without as much as a sweat!
****SPOILERS**** The movie ends as it began but with the opposite results which shows that the smartest and most thought out plans to murder someone don't always work out!