Forgotten SUSPECT

SUSPECT (Blu-ray)

1987 / 121 min

Alliance Entertainment

Review by Princess Pepper😼

To be honest, I almost forgot Cher even did movies. A lot of ‘em, actually. In fact, she had quite a streak of really good ones back in the ‘80s, around the same time as one of her many musical comebacks. Yep…that was a pretty good decade for the ol’ girl. I guess I just forgot because she hasn’t since appeared in much that held any interest for me.

Wedged among all those memorable ones is Suspect, a courtroom thriller where she plays public defender Kathleen Riley, tasked with handling the case of deaf & mute derelict Carl Anderson (Liam Neeson), who’s been charged with the brutal murder of a young law clerk. Though all the evidence points to his guilt, she does her best to defend him, including trying to get a continuance in order to find a missing witness. However, Judge Helms (John Mahoney) doesn’t grant one.

Meanwhile, juror Eddie Sanger (Dennis Quaid) is convinced Carl is innocent and does some investigating on his own. Though lawyers and jurors are forbidden to interact during a trial, he continuously reaches out to Kathleen with clues he’s discovered. She’s reluctant at first, but when the evidence connects the girl’s murder to some politically power people, the two begin working together (and, of course, getting smoochy).

"If I could turn back time...I'd kick your ass."

As legal thrillers go, Suspect isn’t bad, though it’s hardly Anatomy of a Murder. In addition to some serious implausibilities, we have to endure a superfluous sideplot involving Sanger’s job as a politician. One could take out all those scenes - trimming the already lengthy running time - and the story wouldn’t be the worse for wear. And speaking of story, the big reveal at the conclusion pretty much comes out of the blue, with absolutely no foreshadowing. Without going into specifics, it ends up being kind of a suckerpunch.

Still, the primary story has its share of interesting moments, and overall, the performances are decent. Nobody involved knocks it out of the park or anything, though Cher makes her character engaging enough for us to care about the outcome (Quaid does his best with Sanger, who’s kind of an irritant). Certainly no lost classic, Suspect is one of the Cher movies I’d wager most people forgot existed.

This is a re-issue of a Blu-ray first released by Mill Creek Entertainment in 2017.