Just Cause (film)
Paul Armstrong, a liberal Harvard professor and former lawyer opposed to capital punishment, is persuaded by an elderly woman to go to Florida to investigate the conviction of her grandson Bobby Earl Ferguson for murder.Ferguson, a former Cornell University student, was convicted of raping and brutally murdering a young white girl named Joanie Shriver eight years prior.They learn Ferguson's motive is a desire for revenge on Armstrong's wife Laurie; she was the prosecutor against him in a previous kidnapping case which, while ultimately dropped due to lack of evidence, resulted in his being brutalized and castrated in jail when she had him remanded to make a name for herself, as well as the loss of his Cornell scholarship and educational prospects.The site's consensus states; "Just Cause you round up a phenomenal cast, that doesn't mean you have everything you need for a solid legal thriller – and this film is forgettable proof.[5][6] Janet Maslin praised the performances of Laurence Fishburne and Ed Harris, but found the entire film is colored by director Arne Glimcher's inappropriately polished and antiseptic visual style."[7] Lisa Schwarzbaum likewise praised Fishburne's performance and blamed the film's artistic failure on the direction, saying Glimcher consistently drained the story of its thrills with heavy-handedness.[9] In late November 2022, it was reported by Deadline Hollywood and other media outlets that Scarlett Johansson, who played Katie Armstrong in the film, had signed to star and executive produce an Amazon Prime Video limited series based on Just Cause from writer Christy Hall with a gender-flipped version of Matt Cowart known as Madison "Madi" Cowart as the main protagonist.