PHYSICAL EVIDENCE

title: PHYSICAL EVIDENCE
year: 1989
cast: Burt Reynolds, Theresa Russell, Ned Beatty, Ted McKinley
rating: **1/2

Burt Reynolds is a good cop that seems so guilty, he simply can't be... can he? It's up to climber D.A. Theresa Russell to find who killed an unpopular snitch all the cops despise, especially Reynolds, who'd not only threatened this man, but taped it. Like Hitchcock's FRENZY, the protagonist seems guiltier and guiltier because of his own mistakes and miscalculations. So while Michael Crichton's a master novelist, his directorial career is pretty good: but this one's merely average. And Russell, who's great in STRAIGHT TIME and BLACK WIDOW, gives one of the worst, and unintentionally hilarious, performances of all time. But Burt holds it together, as does fellow DELIVERANCE alumni Ned Beatty as the prosecuting attorney with a much too easy gig.