Product Description

Studio: Lions Gate Home Ent. Release Date: 02/18/2003

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #30138 in DVD
• Brand: Lions Gate
• Released on: 2001-05-22
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 101 minutes

Amazon.com
Writer-director Rowdy Herrington takes innocence, guilt, ambition, and morality, and twists them into a suspenseful, seductive spiral that can't help but suck you in. When defense attorney Russell Lawson (Cuba Gooding Jr.) realizes his client (Eric Stoltz) is guilty, he turns on him mid-trial--a move that costs him both the case and his career. Disbarred and disheartened, he retreats to Key West, where he meets a peculiar retired teacher named Christopher Marlowe and the film's roller coaster ride begins. In a quick reversal of fortune, Lawson makes an ethical compromise and becomes wildly successful--and then just as suddenly becomes a fugitive from the law, trying to track down a murderer before being tracked down himself. Gooding's constant voice-overs tend to distract from the story rather than add to it; however, his down-home earnestness makes him a good foil for a cranky cop (Tom Berenger) who appears to be more interested in making an arrest than in finding the truth. But then nothing here is what it first appears to be, and although Herrington leaves just enough clues for the astute viewer to pick up on the film's central metaphor, the conclusion still manages to surprise. With such a talented cast and tight writing, it's hard to fathom why A Murder of Crows didn't do better in theaters. At least on video the film, like Lawson, is given a second chance. --Larisa Lomacky Moore

Customer Reviews

Incredibly Well Done
A MURDER OF CROWS redeems Rowdy Herrington and Cuba Gooding Jr. for every bad film they have ever made, and combined... that's a lot of bad films.

MURDER revolves around a disbarred lawyer who scams his way into a success, but, through a devious plot twist, becomes the main suspect in a string of brilliant homicides. The script by Herrington is absolutely involving. It's detailed, well paced, and very smart. Despite a few goofy or cheesy lines, which are pretty much due to bad acting in certain parts, the script is solid.

The direction is as haunting as it should be in this type of film and Herrington really turns up the suspense. His slow shots or disoriated handhelds are in the right places, and it only adds to the tenseness of the story.

Cuba Gooding Jr. is completely fascinating in this role. He gets into it all the way and makes you believe him, even in the most incredible scenes. Tom Berrenger, however, does not fare as well. Even though he proved in the past that he was a decent actor, he slips a bit, and some of his lines are given like he was reading them off of cue cards. However, he's good enough that it doesn't distract from anything else, and in some scenes, he's excellent. The supporting cast, including Marianne Jean Baptiste and Eric Stoltz, is very good and only adds to the film. Stoltz is smarmy and oozes charisma and Baptiste has a very soothing, sweet, grandmother-type air about her. They are the best they could be.

Overall, A MURDER OF CROWS is a highly overlooked film that should be scene by lovers of suspense. The guessing game that is involved throughout the story doesn't make you feel stupid, but it doesn't give much away either.

Formulaic.
A Murder of Crows (Rowdy Herrington, 1999)

Herrington, best known for the Patrick Swayze vehicle Road House, turns in a by-the-numbers thriller here. Not awful, but not great, either. Lawson Russell (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) is a recently-disbarred lawyer who got the ax after recusing himself from the trial of Thurman Parks III (Eric Stoltz), a slimeball even Russell can't bring himself to defend. A year later, low on cash and running a fishing boat in the Florida Keys, working on his perpetually-unfinished novel, he meets an old man with the improbable name of Christopher Marlowe who wants him to read over a manuscript. He goes to return it the next day and finds the old man has died of a heart attack, so Russell appropriates the manuscript, which of course becomes a smash success-- after which Rusell becomes the target of obsessive-cop stereotype Clifford Dubose (Tom Berenger), because all the murders in the book Russell appropriated really happened, and now he's the prime suspect. I'm pretty sure you can figure out what happens from there.

It's mildly amusing, and good acting is turned in by Stoltz, Gooding, and Berenger, though they have little to do other than play cardboard cutouts. Ashley Laurence also shows up as Gooding's publisher, and any excuse to see Ashley Laurence on a screen is worth your time; it's got an empty-calories feel to it, however, and a few days after seeing it, you're likely to start wondering if you remember certain details (say, for example, the entire last half-hour of the film) correctly. ** ½

A smart thriller that is one of the best ever made
One of my favorite movies of all time, this film teaches a number of moral lessons as it takes the audience on a bungee ride of suspense and murder. In the classic Shakespeare tradition (King Lear; Hamlet), the protoganist Cuba Gooding, takes a tremendous fall from power, wealth, and acclaim to find himself a fugitive thanks to his plagirized book in which he accurately tells of a number of gruesome murders, including details that only the killer could know. The ensuing manhant and redemption rank up there with the best potboilers of their kind (Fugitive), and the smart intelligent script weaves a number of literary allegories into the plot that left an impact on me long after I finished viewing it.