Adapting Finder's dense plotting and complex structure into a workable screenplay proved challenging. Yang turned to the screenwriting (and husband-and-wife) team of Yuri Zeltser & Cary Bickley, whom Yang says had the discipline and creative spark to mold the story into a screenplay.

With the Zeltser & Bickley screenplay in hand, Yang began the search for a director who could bring more than high-powered action scenes and "conventional" genre elements to the project. "I wanted a filmmaker who had gotten consistently great performances from his actors," says Yang, "so that HIGH CRIMES would be more than just a thriller."

A chance meeting with Jesse B'Franklin, producing partner and, more recently the wife of director Carl Franklin, proved fortuitous. Yang passed the script to B'Franklin, who saw great potential in the script, particularly with its central character. "I thought Claire was a fascinating character," B'Franklin relates. "She's a successful professional woman who was living the good life, but suddenly found herself in a situation she never could have imagined."

B'Franklin immediately gave the script to Franklin, who shared her enthusiasm for the project. "The story's 'David and Goliath' aspects really appealed to me," says Franklin, whose "One False Move" and "Devil in a Blue Dress" also pitted a lone character against seemingly unbeatable obstacles.

Yang knew that Franklin, all of whose films offered finely-observed character studies, would bring something special to HIGH CRIMES. "Carl has an unerring sense of authenticity, a kind of seamless sense of reality," Yang explains. "Every moment in his films is real. You sense that he's capturing a slice of life in all its dimensions and colors."

Once Franklin came aboard HIGH CRIMES, he set about adding some character-based elements to the project. "I wanted to find ways to pump some blood into the human relationships," he notes, "to get deeper inside the characters."

Chief among these characters is Claire Kubik, whose seemingly ideal marriage and high-powered legal career start unraveling when the man she thought she knew so well turns out to be someone else. While Joseph Finder's Claire was a buttoned-down lawyer and a member of the legal establishment, Zeltser, Bickley and Franklin envisioned Claire as more rebellious - a post-Gen X attorney. This, they thought, would make her someone more people could relate to.

According to B'Franklin, Ashley Judd was the ideal match to convey Claire's rebelliousness, intelligence and complexities. "Ashley is extremely bright and verbal," B'Franklin notes, "with a questioning and curious mind. For those reasons she felt right for Claire. That's our character."

The role's complexities was only one element that intrigued Judd about HIGH CRIMES. She also appreciated how Franklin had turned it into more than a standard woman-in-jeopardy thriller. "The story's political underpinnings add a dynamic quality and texture," Judd explains. "There's a genuine synthesis between the impassioned, dramatic moments and the thrills.

"Carl Franklin told us," Judd continues, "that he saw HIGH CRIMES as both a drama and a thriller. Because, as Carl said, 'We need the fear. The threat.'"

Judd even put a name to the director's detailed work and attitude toward HIGH CRIMES: "Franklin-ization." "Carl could take what could have been standard, obligatory 'thriller' moments and put enough spin on them so they had some 'Franklin-ization'," she notes. "He'd always be thinking about the details of a scene, to invigorate the story."

Claire is in some ways a "lost" character - lost in the confusion over her husband's past and secret life as a military operative, and lost in the foreboding and impenetrable world of the military justice system. The military, Claire discovers, doesn't like outsiders.

To make sense of the system she finds herself suddenly up against, Claire needs help, someone, she says, "who's beaten these guys before, and who's hungry to do it again." She finds it in a "wild card": Charlie Grimes, an ex-military attorney with a grudge against the system, and who now operates out of a run-down office and a beat-up Harley. When Charlie tells Claire that she can't attack the system and must play by their rules ("You fight the system and you lose," he insists), he quickly adds - with a twinkle in his eye - that his wild card status ensures that he doesn't have to play by their - or anyone's rules.

As they did with Claire, the filmmakers enlarged the role of Charlie Grimes, building upon his relationship with his new employer, while adding character flaws and a vulnerability not found in the novel. The filmmakers believed that Morgan Freeman was just the actor who could bring these qualities to life. "What people always sense in Morgan is a deep level of authenticity and caring," says Janet Yang. "There's something compassionate and real about Morgan."

Throughout his career, Freeman has excelled at playing outsiders, like the tough pimp in "Street Smart" and the weary ex-gunslinger in "Unforgiven." But as Carl Franklin notes, Freeman's inherent "twinkle" is equally important in giving life to Grimes. "Morgan has a Cheshire Cat kind of quality, where you're wondering what he's thinking," Franklin points out. "And the joke is always on you. So that's Grimes, and that's definitely a quality of Morgan's that we wanted."

Freeman and Judd had proved a potent combination on the box-office hit "Kiss the Girls," and were excited about the opportunity to again join forces. "What's unique about our on-screen relationship is how the chemistry works," says Freeman. "Collaborating a second time didn't provide a shortcut, because we never had to work our way to it the first time with 'Kiss the Girls.' It was there from the beginning."

"I just completely trust Morgan," adds Judd. "I know he's always going to be totally present and authentic. And that helps bring out those qualities in me, too."

The Claire-Charlie dynamic leads to what Franklin calls "one of those classic buddy relationships that you've seen play out over the years through a lot of different eras of film." Morgan Freeman, however, sees it as more than a friendship. "It's a little bit of a love story, in a way," he states. "Not in the conventional, romantic sense, but there's a deep, abiding affection between them. They're very different people, but in some ways they bring out the best in each other."

Claire thinks she and husband Tom Kubik were bringing out the best in one another. They live an almost fantasy like existence in Marin County, California. They're young, deeply in love, and ready to start a family.

But after learning of her husband's dark, secret life before they met, Claire must ask the question posed within so many couples: Do you ever really know the person you married? Claire comes to realize, she really doesn't know Tom at all. The man she thought was kind and gentle, was once a secret military operative - a trained killer. But did he in cold-blood murder helpless civilians, as the military has charged?

Actor Jim Caviezel's all-American qualities, gentle eyes and strong charisma, which director Terrence Malick captured so brilliantly in "The Thin Red Line," convinced Franklin that he had found Tom Kubik. "I was mesmerized by Jim's work in that film," Franklin remembers. "I thought he had the most interesting face I've seen on film since the young De Niro. Jim's face has a kinetic quality and looks like it can be hiding many secrets."

Franklin also notes that Claire and Tom, as reconceived for the film, complement each other. "Claire has a strong rebellious streak, while Tom is a quiet, salt-of-the-earth man who works with his hands," Franklin points out. "He's comfortable seeing his wife step into the limelight, while in some ways he is the foundation of their relationship."

Caviezel appreciated that Tom was nothing like any of the actor's previous roles. "Tom is kind of an average guy who loves his wife more than anything. But there are complexities in him, initially hidden beneath the surface, that bring an entire new dimension to the character."

Rounding out the key cast are Amanda Peet as Claire's errant sister Jackie and Adam Scott as Lieutenant Embry, the inexperienced military attorney assigned by the court to defend Tom Kubik. Franklin previously had worked with Peet on a television pilot, and was pleased to reunite with her on HIGH CRIMES. "Amanda really put across the notion that Jackie gives insight into Claire," he notes. "They're almost flip sides of the same coin."

Sparks fly when Jackie meets Lt. Embry. The young officer has his hands full juggling romance and a case where the deck seems stacked against him. "Embry isn't called onto the case for his wealth of experience," Scott explains. "He's a bit of a patsy in the eyes of the people who've assigned him to it."

Although the novel High Crimes was set in Boston, the filmmakers elected to change the movie's locale to San Francisco. "As we were filming in winter, we didn't want it to be a 'snow picture,' says B'Franklin. "More importantly, I think San Francisco is one of the most beautiful, picturesque cities in the county, and is in close proximity to a military base," which was required by the story.

Alameda Naval Base in Oakland, with its somewhat harsh, art deco-like feel, more than fulfilled Franklin's vision for specific scenes. "We wanted to avoid the traditional way of depicting military bases on film," says Franklin. "Our goal was to make Claire a fish-out-of-water, by putting her a place that had a tougher environment than you'd find in traditional-looking bases. The base is a formidable foe to our protagonists." Back to Main Review page

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