- After shooting his wife, Ted confesses his crime and asks the court to move his case to trial. He represents himself against Willy, a successful lawyer. But there's more to the case than meets the eye.
- Wealthy, brilliant, and meticulous Ted Crawford, a structural engineer in Los Angeles, shoots his wife Jennifer and entraps her lover, Lieutenant Robert "Rob" Nunally. He signs a confession. At the arraignment, he asserts his rights to represent himself and asks the court to move immediately to trial. The prosecutor is Willy Beachum, a hotshot who's soon to join a fancy civil-law firm, told by everyone it's an open and shut case. Crawford sees Beachum's weakness, the hairline fracture of his character: Willy's a winner. The engineer sets in motion a clockwork crime with all of the objects moving in ways he predicts.—<jhailey@hotmail.com>
- Ted Crawford shoots his unfaithful wife, confesses to the Police, orally, and in writing, but then pleads not guilty and opts to defend himself in court. The young District Attorney assigned to the case, Willy Beachum, has had a successful career with a ninety-seven percent conviction rate. Beachum, however, is actually on his way to a lucrative position in a big private law firm, but his desire to win keeps him on the case. What ensues is a battle of wits between the two, as Crawford systematically destroys his opponent's case.—garykmcd
- In Los Angeles, the structural engineer Ted Crawford witnesses his wife Jennifer Crawford and her lover Lieutenant Robert "Rob" Nunally in the swimming pool of a hotel. When Jennifer comes back home, he shoots her in the head and then he shoots three times against the windows. The gardener Ciro calls the Police and the negotiator Rob, who does not know the last name of his lover, gets the murder weapon and a confession from Ted. Meanwhile, the young and efficient, but arrogant, prosecutor Willy Beachum is resigning his position in the low-pay public service work to join the private civil-law firm Wooton Sims, but decides to accept the case, which is his assessment is easily resolved. Ted asks the judge to represent himself in court and Willy accepts. But sooner, Willy learns that the evidence cannot be accepted in the trial, and despite knowing that Ted is the killer, the murder weapon is missing and he needs to get new evidence, otherwise he will lose the case and Ted will be a free man.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- L.A.P.D. Detective Lieutenant Robert "Rob" Nunally leads a squad investigating reported gunshots at the home of the wealthy Crawfords, husband and wife Ted and Jennifer. Nunally enters the house facing Ted holding a gun, he confessing to shooting Jennifer, who is lying unconscious or dead in a pool of her own blood a short distance away from him. As the Police take Ted into custody, the Police station where he will subsequently sign a written confession as to having shot Jennifer, other first responders find that Jennifer is still alive, although the eventual diagnosis is that, pending a miracle, she will not ever awaken from her coma, thus being placed on life support. The case is assigned to ambitious young Deputy District Attorney Willy Beachum. Despite being a good lawyer, Willy has thus far scripted his own success, a ninety-seven percent conviction rate, achieved somewhat by handing over unwinnable cases to other Deputy District Attorneys. This case will be his last in the District Attorney's office, as he has been hired by prestigious private firm Wooton Sims. This move of being hired by a private firm is much quicker than most of Willy's predecessors and colleagues in the District Attorney's office, again achieved partly on a calculated action on his part. Although Willy is unsure if he will see this case through to its conclusion, he is tasked to do so as the case looks to be concluded before he is scheduled to be at Wooton Sims. With Ted having made the verbal and written confessions, and with Ted declining legal counsel in favor of acting as his own lawyer, Willy sees this case as a slam dunk in his favor despite one small hiccup regarding the supposed murder weapon. Despite Ted's seemingly crazy behavior, Willy will soon learn that Ted has a grand plan to win the case involving Nunally. As the case progresses, Willy has to decide how far he will go to get that conviction, it almost becoming a personal vendetta against Ted, losing which may not only threaten his new job at Wooton Sims, but his career as a lawyer, that is unless he can find that much needed evidence to put Ted away legitimately.—Huggo
- Theodore "Ted" Crawford (Anthony Hopkins), a wealthy Irish aeronautical engineer living in Los Angeles, confirms that his wife, Jennifer (Embeth Davidtz), is having an affair with police detective Robert Nunally (Billy Burke). As an aeronautical engineer, Crawford works with complex and intricate systems and is used to working very systematically to solve a problem. Crawford is often called in to help the NTSC in analyzing the root cause of an air crash, and Crawford is able to do so with his instincts and without the use of any fancy equipment, working through the problem logically.
Nunally and Jennifer were making plans to live together eventually. Crawford knew the hotel where Nunally and Jennifer met and had observed them together himself. He even checks into the hotel and finds them frolicking in the pool. Crawford enters Nunally's room while he and Jennifer were in the pool.
Confronting his wife, Crawford shoots her. Crawford then wipes the bullet clean, fires a few more shots through the window, changes the location of Jennifer's body, burns his clothes and washes himself with hot water.
Police are called by the house help who was outside and heard the shots. The police arrive, including Nunally, who enters the house cautiously, negotiating with Crawford to put his gun down. Crawford agrees to put his gun down, if Nunally also does the same. Crawford confesses he shot his wife. Nunally goes into the bedroom and finds Jennifer's body. Recognizing the victim, and being subtly goaded by Crawford, Nunally becomes enraged and assaults him. Jennifer, despite her injuries, is not killed, but left in a coma. Crawford is arrested for attempted murder.
Now in jail awaiting trial, Crawford engages in a battle of wits with rising star deputy district attorney William "Willy" Beachum (Ryan Gosling), who considers the case an open-and-shut matter and agrees to go to trial immediately. Beachum was assigned the case by his boss District Attorney Joe Lobruto (David Strathairn) who is not impressed with Beachum's 97% conviction rate, given Beachum traded all his losing cases to other DDAs. Beachum wants to be done with the case as soon as possible as the case is only in the way of his career at Wooton Sims. Nunally asks Beachum to take the case seriously.
Beachum is preparing to transition from criminal law to a corporate attorney at well-known law firm Wooton Sims, and flirts with his future boss, Nikki Gardner (Rosamund Pike). Beachum admits to Nikki that Wooton's client's kid had a DUI charge against him and the client came to Beachum for help. Beachum agreed to throw the case if the client got him a meeting with the owner of Wooton, Mr Burt. But then Beachum did not throw the case, got the kid the maximum punishment and still had his meeting with Burt, which landed him the job.
Wooton Sims is getting ready to defend a CEO of a tech firm Warfield in Chicago who embezzled $300M from his company and pinned it on his CFO. Beachum is supposed to be preparing for the new case at his new company and cannot be bothered by Crawford. Meanwhile the gun found on the crime scene had not been fired at all. Beachum asks the police to search the house for the gun.
At the trial, Crawford acts as his own attorney, thereby matching himself, an untrained litigant, against a star prosecutor. Crawford informs the court that the arresting officer (Nunally) was having an affair with his wife, assaulted him during his arrest, and was present during his interrogation. Crawford's confession is therefore ruled inadmissible as evidence, being fruit of the poisonous tree. Nikki advises Beachum to do damage control and get off the case as the DA's office offered him to do. But Beachum's ego is hurt, and he wants to win it bad.
Beachum discovers that Crawford's handgun could not have been used in the shooting because it does not match shell casings at the crime scene and in fact has never been fired. This baffles police, since CCTV surveillance was in use during the shooting and until Crawford's arrest, during which time he did not leave the house.
Nunally comes up with a scheme to plant false evidence to implicate Crawford, which Beachum rejects. With no new evidence to present, Beachum has to concede the trial, and Crawford is acquitted. Disgraced, Nunally commits suicide outside the court.
Beachum's future with the prestigious firm is now in tatters. However, he begins to see his D.A. job as a means to fight for justice for those such as Crawford's wife. Crawford himself observes the change, commenting sarcastically that Beachum has "found God". This motivates Beachum to continue searching for evidence, almost obsessively. Realizing that Crawford's plan is to dispose of the only eyewitness to the crime (his comatose wife), Beachum obtains a court order to keep Jennifer on life support. He arrives at the hospital but is unable to prevent staff turning off her life support.
A mix-up of cell phones causes Beachum to realize that Nunally and Crawford both used the same type of gun, a .45 caliber Glock 21. He figures out that before the crime Crawford must have switched his and Nunally's guns in the hotel room where Jennifer and Nunally secretly met. Crawford had shot his wife with Nunally's gun, then reloaded it. The detective had arrived on the scene carrying Crawford's gun, and both had put down their weapons as a preliminary move in negotiations. When Nunally had recognized the victim, rushing over to Jennifer, Crawford had switched the guns again, retrieving his own, unused, weapon. When Crawford had reappeared brandishing his gun, Nunally had tackled and assaulted him, before Crawford's arrest. Nunally had then unwittingly holstered the murder weapon, allowing the unused gun to be taken as evidence.
Beachum confronts Crawford with his deductions. With Jennifer now dead, the bullet lodged in her head can now be retrieved and matched with Nunally's gun. Crawford confesses, confident he is protected by the principle of double jeopardy. However, Beachum dryly informs him that by allowing his wife to die, Crawford can now be prosecuted for murder, having previously been tried merely for attempted murder. Since he had taken Jennifer off life support, new charges can be filed against Crawford and a new trial can be set. Crawford is arrested by waiting police. The film ends with a new trial about to begin, with Beachum prosecuting and Crawford surrounded by a team of highly paid defense attorneys from Wooton Sims.
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