Trial attorneys would have a field day with me. My memory is so bad, I can’t recall what I had for dinner two nights ago. Or where.
And when it comes to films, I’m even worse. I think I saw the 1990 movie “Presumed Innocent” starring Harrison Ford. But fortunately, it doesn’t matter. The reboot streaming on Apple TV is sufficiently suspenseful, and, I am told, is different enough to keep you watching for eight episodes.
The protagonist, Rusty Sabitch (Jake Gyllenhaal) seems to have it all—a loving family and a job as assistant DA in Chicago, where he’s a star, and reports to bull-in-a-china-shop DA Raymond Horgan (Bill Camp), whom he calls his best friend. Suddenly everything goes south.
Raymond loses reelection to sleazy Nicco della Guardia (O-T Fagbenle). That means Nico’s assistant Tommy Molto’s star is rising (Peter Sarsgaard, at his most loathsome) at Rusty’s expense. The tension has always been bad between Rusty and Tommy and it’s about to get worse.
Why? Carolyn Polhemus (Renate Reinsve), a colleague in the DA’s office, has been brutally murdered. What makes this a bit sticky is that Carolyn and Rusty had been having a passionate affair. As Rusty is the last person to have seen her alive, he is accused of killing her. Tommy, who has held a long personal vendetta against Rusty, is only too happy to hang the murder around Rusty’s neck.
Rusty is arrested, but steadfastly proclaims his innocence. But his tendency to snap and physically attack his enemies isn’t making his case any easier. He’s already hid evidence in the trunk of his car, omitted information from his own defense team, and tried to bribe an already imprisoned murderer into planning Carolyn’s killing from inside the joint. Plus, he’s cheated on his wife Barbara (Ruth Negga) and lost the confidence of his kids. We begin to wonder: Did he commit the murder after all and are we just presuming this guy is innocent?
Once the trial begins, the pace picks up dramatically: we’re basically speeding down the Long Island Expressway with no exits in sight. Every episode becomes a fight to the finish, as Tommy lets his personal feelings get in the way of justice.
I had my doubts as to whether David E. Kelley could turn a two-hour movie from the 1990s into eight episodes in 2024 but he’s done it quite well. Part of the success lies with the cast. Besides the amazing Bill Camp, nearly everyone has brought their A-game: Ruth Negga as Barbara, the bewildered cuckolded wife, as well as the perfectly cast Chase Infiniti and Kingston Rumi Southwick as the mixed-race Sabitch kids. Elizabeth Marvel (Bill Camp’s wife IRL) is indeed a marvel as Lorraine, the DA’s skeptical wife, and Peter Sarsgaard, with his bad Graydon Carter coif, smirks so effortlessly you want to punch his lights out.
As prosecuting attorney Nico Della Guardia, Fagbenle is a smug dandy with a slippery, pompous, pseudo-preppy accent. As one critic put it, his voice “is imbued with amused distance, like he’s an alien watching humans for the first time and can’t help but be enthralled by their petty little dramas.”
The only disappointment is, of all people, Jake Gyllenhaal. A personal favorite of mine, here he is totally outclassed by the rest of the cast. Or maybe he’s just mis-cast. Everything about JG bespeaks gentleness, not ruthlessness.
Nevertheless, fans of the 1990 movie and the Scott Turow novel will enjoy this reboot; apparently the changes in the plot have kept it fresh. It’s reported that there will be a Season 2, based on Turow’s sequel “Innocent,” which will premiere in 2025. The suspense, you should pardon the expression, is killing me.
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I never saw the original with Harrison Ford but read the book and saw the newest reboot with JG. Very different from the book but I still liked it.