This article contains spoilers (also contains some minor spoilers for other suspense detective works)
Five-star recommendation! A crime film with a high IQ that seems to be gentle, but in fact it is surging undercurrents!
2020.8.5
I watched this movie late last night with so much relish and endless aftertaste, so that I was a little insomnia thinking about the plot of the case... I slept in this morning and got up to write a slightly longer account.
Let me talk about a few points I admire first
1. The film structure is very clear, the main line of the plot is complete, and there are almost no logical loopholes in the plot (&& is very friendly to face blind patients)
2. Ted's core trick is very simple, but at the same time very subtle, as he said at the end of the film: "admit it, it's beautiful" (probably such a line). This is a bit like the Zen philosophy: often ordinary phenomena hide infinite possibilities. Be good at observing life, persevere, and see the world with a connected eye, maybe you can get extraordinary answers. This almost corresponds to Willy experiencing some setbacks in the film, persevering, and finally found a flaw in the trivial matter of "getting the wrong phone".
btw, I think there are three best tricks in general detective reasoning literary works: the first one is to simplify the complex, with only one simple but hard-to-find core element. When the answer is revealed, it gives people a kind of trick. See the transparency of the moon. For example, the dedication of suspect X, the Watch House incident, etc. The second is the extreme ingenuity, which uses a variety of ways to complicate events. A feasible routine is case-in-case, combining multiple cases and interweaving light and dark lines. For example, Detective 1 in Chinatown, homicide on a golf course, etc. The third is all kinds of wonderful narrative techniques. The essence of this category is "credibility." There are many ways to achieve it, so I won't give an example here.
3. I like some details in the film very much. For example, the poem that Willy read when visiting Ted’s wife; when the female lawyer took Willy to the family Thanksgiving dinner, the undercurrent surging on the table indirectly reflected the personality and interpersonal relationship of the female lawyer (there is also a small As a foreshadowing, the female lawyer’s father told Willy about his praise and support for the local public lawyers industry. In the end, when Willy was desperate, he had to ask the father for help); when the trial failed and there was nothing, Willy and the old boss (There is a big foreshadowing here, to comfort Willy, the old boss said it was just an attempted murder) and so on.
4. The settings of the two protagonists are equally brilliant
Ted: A talented and arrogant upper-class person, he was very careful in his thinking when committing a crime, and he was also very cold and firm in the execution of the crime. Some auxiliary plots deeply shaped his character. For example, at the beginning of the film, the problem with the aircraft was quickly discovered, but even arrogantly skipped the spectral analysis; when chatting with Willy in the supervision office, he called him old sport (it made me think of Gatsby in one second); I was very fond of designing small balls. The rolling device is drawing design sketches even during the trial. Combining the physics knowledge I have learned before, I guess that ted wants to design a device similar to "Perpetual Motion: Minimizing the energy loss during the ball rolling, which is also in line with the setting of his previous experts in the field of aerodynamics. Of course, Huo Pukins's interpretation is also very brilliant, such as the look when secretly investigating his wife and police officer's affair. And when he first appeared in court, he chose Willy as the object of defense and so on.
Willy: Willy is a very contradictory person. At the beginning of the film, he was arrogant, young, reckless, and eager for fame, but after losing the case, he still insisted on justice, explored the truth, and worked hard to discover the truth from the details. He is very clever (to enter a large law firm with clever tricks), but he can also make the right choice in the face of big things and wrongs (no phone calls, fake certificates); he is very popular and can find help from his old club friends. I can also fascinate the partner female lawyers of large companies... When watching movies, I always feel that Willy has a small flat head and a stubborn personality. So it adds a bit of goodwill to the movie.
Although as a non-legal student, I still want to discuss the two legal terms in the film and my own doubts about these two legal terms. Personal humble opinion, don't spray mistakes, and welcome the professional guidance of the law gods.
1. Double Jeopardy
Double jeopardy, is aprocedural defence that prevents an accused person from being tried again on the same (or similar) charges following a valid acquittal or conviction in the same jurisdiction.
——David S. Rudstein (2005). "A Brief History of the Fifth Amendment Guarantee Against Double Jeopardy". William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal. 14(1).
Apart from this quotation, I also browsed this entry roughly on Wikipedia and found that different Western countries have different laws and regulations on Double Jeopardy. Another point that surprised me is that both acquittal and conviction apply to this regulation.
Going back to the film, my opinion is: The reason for the second court hearing was that Ted pulled out the breathing tube of his vegetative wife and caused the death of his wife. Regardless of whether ted itself has the legal right to execute this choice, as long as his wife dies, Willy can file a new lawsuit with a new charge (not similar charge). But at the same time, the conditions approved by the previous acquittal judgment are all valid and even stronger than the facts. The only new material evidence at this time is that the murder weapon pistol was found, but it is difficult to convict on this alone (because ted can insist that he has never used this pistol, he did wipe off his fingerprints and hide in the camera Shot in dead ends). So the film finally left an open ending.
2. Fruit of the poisonous tree
The first time I learned about this term was Manhunt: Unabomber I watched before. I think this term and its principle are easier to understand, so I won't explain it much. Then the above line of thought writes that another evidence that must confirm Ted's crime is naturally the conversation between him and Willy in the house at the end of the film (assuming Willy carries a recording pen on his body, or the police outside installs a bug). At this time, another focus of controversy is whether this recording can evade the theory of the fruit of the poisonous tree and become the real evidence in the court trial.
The confession and confession that Lieutenant had signed by Lieutenant were proved invalid, so I am not sure whether this recording of Willy can be used as evidence. After all, ted can argue that Lieutenant was an affair before, and this time Willy’s good career was ruined by his own case, so both of them have a grudge against themselves, so the recording is invalid balabala...From the inner feelings, I hope that The evidence is valid. On the other hand, I am also aware of the importance of national credibility agencies. For example, the police have the power to make decisions and grant legal rights to recordings at specific moments.
Finally, the interpretation of the title of the film
One is the rift in the legal system, which mainly revolves around the legal terms mentioned above.
The second is the flaw of human nature. From the beginning, Willy's arrogance and carelessness made him lose the trial and bright future, and then to the success of Ted's strategy, complacent, and giving gifts to Willy ridicule. It could have been at large, but in the end he went to court.
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