Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
Rusty Sabich is a deputy prosecutor engaged in an obsessive affair with a coworker who is murdered. Soon after, he's accused of the crime. And his fight to clear his name becomes a whirlpool of lies and hidden passions.
Presumed Innocent is a tightly constructed legal thriller elevated by Scott Turow's intricate source material and a masterful final act twist that genuinely recontextualizes everything preceding it. Harrison Ford delivers one of his most restrained and compelling performances, and the supporting cast including Raul Julia and Greta Scacchi is uniformly strong. The courtroom drama mechanics are handled with procedural authenticity rather than Hollywood shorthand. Cinematography is competent and atmospheric but not especially distinctive. Novelty sits at average for the genre — it executes the legal thriller form with exceptional craft but doesn't reinvent it. The ending, however, is genuinely shocking and earns its place among the great thriller conclusions.