A Murder of Crows (1998)

A disbarred lawyer takes credit for a late friend's book, which becomes a smash hit but the tables turn on him sooner than he suspected.

Director:

Rowdy Herrington

Writer:

Rowdy Herrington

Stars:

Cuba Gooding Jr., Tom Berenger, Marianne Jean-Baptiste

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Cuba Gooding Jr.	...	Lawson Russell
Tom Berenger	...	Clifford Dubose
Marianne Jean-Baptiste	...	Elizabeth Pope
Eric Stoltz	...	Thurman Parks III
Mark Pellegrino	...	Prof. Arthur Corvus
Ashley Laurence	...	Janine DeVrie
Carmen Argenziano	...	Judge Wiley Banning
Doug Wert	...	Billy Ray Richardson
Nate Adams	...	James
Jeremiah Black	...	Bailiff
Derek Broes	...	Agent Manning
Adrian Colon	...	Detective
Gaelle Comparat	...	Thurman's Girl (as Gaelle Compart)
Tara Crespo	...	Young Woman
Anastasia Roussel	...	Clerk (as Anastasia Drake)

Storyline

After a lawyer gets disbarred, he goes off to write a book about his experience. He meets a man who lets him read his manuscript. The man dies and the lawyer passes the book off as his. Just when the book becomes a big success. He gets arrested for the true life murders of the five lawyers in his book. He then finds himself, trying to prove that he is innocent of the murders.

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Plot Keywords:

interracial sex | black bra and panties | crow | lawyer | murder | 

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Taglines:

First thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers...

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Genres:

Action | Crime | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for language, nudity, a scene of strong sexuality and some violence

Did You Know?

Trivia

The 2009 Bollywood movie Fox (2009) starring Arjun Rampal and Sunny Deol is inspired by this movie.

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Goofs

When Dubose receives the book in the mail and flips the cover open to see the autograph from Lawson you can see that all the words from the book cover on the inside of the book are complete gibberish. None of them make sense in any recognizable language.

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Quotes

Clifford Dubose: You're going downtown!
Lawson Russell: On what charge?
Clifford Dubose: Arrogance.

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Connections

Referenced in Film Geek (2005)

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Soundtracks

Put My Faith In You
Performed by Shane August
Written by Shane August
Courtesy of Lavender Hope Music/ASCAP

User Reviews

Good performance by Berenger and some nice locations.

This is one of those gimmicky plotted,elegantly produced movies that can be fun to watch if you go with the flow and don't dwell too much on the implausibilities.

Cuba Gooding is a lawyer who has a fit of conscientiousness and promptly gets disbarred. He travels to Key West and becomes friends with a retired Englishman who gives him the manuscript of a novel and asks for an opinion. The Englishman is found dead. Gooding decides to publish the novel as his own and then the fun begins.

Gooding has an engaging personality but his acting leaves something to be desired, his name is on the credits as producer (which in Hollywood can either mean a lot or nothing at all) so we would assume that he had read the script, but it doesn't always seem that way. He sometimes seems to be acting from off stage cues with his mannerisms at variance with the mood of the scene. In one scene, for no reason at all, he looks down at floor then shuffles his feet to another position as though he has just been told he is standing in the wrong spot.

The plot takes some not always credible twists and turns and we get that hackneyed scene where for no plausible reason the protagonist makes a run for it. In this case Gooding makes a surprisingly easy escape from a house swarming with cops, then of course we get the chance to visit some nicely photographed locations and to meet some quirky characters.

Tom Berenger does best in the acting department as a surly cop. He also has some of the best lines. He refuses a drink at one point with a terse "I never drink. It makes me feel happy."

Mainly for Berenger's performance and some nifty locations I give it 7 out of 10.

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

6 July 1999 (USA)

Also Known As:

A Murder of Crows

Filming Locations:

Key West, Florida Keys, Florida, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Motion International, Goodbros. Pictures Entertainment, Trilogy Entertainment Group

Technical Specs

Runtime:

102 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1