Mihai Toma While attending at a fund raising ceremony, Henry is asked to pay a very short visit to the local police station for a couple of questions but the situation escalates quickly, Henry being accused of raping and murdering two small girls. He's forced to stop lying once he figures out that the police mean serious business but whether he is the actual culprit or whether he is hiding something else is left to be discovered and revealed by the detectives. His social life is being jeopardized but also his relation with his gorgeous wife who doesn't know what to think about her husband.It's a psychological thriller, full of confusion, mystery and unexpected disclosures. It manages to draw all your attention, making you eager to discover its unpredictable finale. As a minus, it is a bit too boring in some scenes, slightly reducing its rating but overall it's a great watch.

Ed-Shullivan Well I finally got around to watching Under Suspicion and I must say that the films' cat and mouse chase that was going on throughout the entire film actually did hold my attention.Gene Hackman plays a very wealthy tax attorney named Henry Hearst who is gainfully employed as a partner in his law firm named after him and he is living in Puerto Rico, married to a very young and attractive wife named Chantal played by Monica Bellucci. When two young girls bodies are discovered raped and murdered Henry Hearst becomes Captain Victor Benezet's prime suspect. The Captain is played by the venerable 2005 Oscar winner actor Morgan Freeman and he sets his sights on his prime suspect Henry Hearst with his equally ambitious Detective Felix Owens played by Thomas Jane who would like nothing better than to beat the crap out of this assumed pedophile rich tax lawyer Henry Hearst.Throughout the film which is a 110 minute on screen interrogation Captain Victor Benezet and Detective Felix Owens take turns interrogating the wealthy tax lawyer Henry Hearst divulging all of his deepest darkest secrets and fetishes throughout the film. Meanwhile Mrs. Hearst is behind the two way mirror during some of her husbands interrogation and confession which obviously is meant to embarrass this married wealthy couple in an effort to draw out of them who is responsible for murdering these two teenage girls.Ahhhhh, but just like all of us who crave that beautiful looking dessert or spicy pizza, and we gobble it up, once we have eaten it all, we are left empty and we realize too late that those were wasted calories and maybe we are left with nothing more than just some common heartburn and a reason for feeling we were fooled into eating that dessert, or that pizza that seemed to look so good.Such is the wasted time we have spent on watching Morgan Freeman for 110 minutes interrogate Gene Hackman only to realize that the end does not in this case justify the means. The ending was and is as cheap a dessert, or that pizza we were guilty of consuming, and we always seem to invariably ask ourselves "why did I do that?" If you read my review first maybe I can save you some wasted calories and about 2 hours of your time as the films end is just so disappointing that I asked myself "really now?" "The writers and director could only come up with this crap of an ending?"Well just like a cheap dessert or a spicy pizza that also will eventually turn in to nothing more and nothing less than a good crap so was Under Suspicion. I give it a 4 out of 10 rating and I suggest you stay away from this over rated film.

thomaspkanell I watched this movie and I was totally befuddled by the ending. What is the relationship between Hackman's character and Belucci's? They knew each other when Chantal was very young and then they married later, but at a later point they stop conjugal relations and have no children. Even when they no longer conjugate, however, Chantal still allows her husband to kiss her and zip up her dress and to appear in public together; maybe it's not much, but it seems to contraindicate that Chantal "sets up" her husband.During the interrogation, Chantal spits in disgust at her husband's admissions that he likes young women. Again, this indicates that it is a spontaneous reaction to the her husband's admissions and it is not a premeditated set-up of her husband.Apparently, Chantal stops sleeping with her husband when she finds him spending intimate (but not physical) time with her niece. Maybe she despises his attraction to young girls and she won't compete for her husband's affections.If Chantal has a problem with her husband's behavior, it could indicate that she might possibly be a murderess who wants to eliminate her competition because of jealousy and anger. This is the only reason I see for Hackman's character to confess to a murder he didn't commit -- to save his wife from prosecution. He never "cracks" prior to this!When the real murderer is caught, Chantal realizes how much her husband really loves her that he was willing to take the fall for her. When she contemplates suicide, it might be on account of the pain she caused him, but she decides it is better to respond to his love. Hackman's character leaves the police station as a free man, but avoids his wife. Why would he avoid her? It is true she allowed police to search the house, but with the mountain of circumstantial evidence against him, it seemed necessary and reasonable to do this. On the other hand, she didn't back up her husband when he needed it most, (although a search warrant would have rendered her decision moot.)Maybe both characters are flawed, Hackman's with his obsession for young girls and being unfaithful (caused by his wife's rejection of him physically?), and Chantal with her jealousy and rejection of her husband. If so, this movie seems to depict how difficult it is for two people to stay the course and to love each other without reservation (especially when there is a 25-30 year difference in ages between the wedded!) The only thing I can think of is that Chantal's husband realized that a woman who would shun her husband while being married isn't really in love with her husband, no matter how much she is loved first. Maybe Chantal is getting older and her husband no longer finds her attractive? Maybe the original marriage was based on the age difference and after he made the ultimate sacrifice for his wife, he found out she wasn't really worth it?The ending seems to evoke despair over the possibility of love's triumph, even while one makes the ultimate sacrifice for it? Lastly, I thought Thomas Jane's character was called "Opie," not "O.B." referring to Andy Griffith's TV son in Mayberry, as a sort of snide reference to the detective's unsophisticated, clumsy, yokel kind of way of doing his job.

Galina Under Suspicion (2000) is a re-make of a French film Garde à vue (1981) directed by Claude Miller and starring Romy Schneider, Michel Serrault, Lino Ventura and Guy Marchand. It was based on the British novel Brainwash, by John Wainwright. I did not see the French film simply because I can't find it but I've seen Under Suspicion more than once and enjoy it every time even though I know how it ends.As a thriller/mystery/crime investigation, Under Suspicion (2000) teases a viewer and more likely would leave a fan of the pure genre disappointed but as a psychological character study which uses the mystery and serial murders investigation as a device to explore the darkest places of human desires and relationships, it is very good. Besides, watching for almost two hours the duel of wills, intellects, and despairs between noble as always Morgan Freeman and exceptional Gene Hackman is a treat. The director's approach to narrative that allows the viewer to be placed along with Victor (Freeman) inside the flashbacks of Hackman's character, Hector, is interesting, unusual, and fresh, and adds to an uneasy and dark atmosphere of the forbidden and deeply hidden desires and fantasies. As great as they both are, for many years after I saw the film for the first time, it was the striking beauty of then relatively little known to the American viewers, Italian Monica Belucci that I remembered vividly. The film director, Stephen Hopkins wanted to cast Monica Bellucci after watching Malèna (2000) while on an overseas flight. I am glad he did. She did not get lost next to her celebrated partners in the film. I also think that moving the action to San Juan, Puerto Rico during the San Sebastian Street Festival that is celebrated every third week in January was a good idea. The carnival atmosphere of music, vibrant colors, and grotesque masks strikes the dramatic contrast with the harrowing devastating experience the main characters of the movie go through and the place in life they find themselves after the investigation is over. Will they ever forget?