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:

Caw the Case.

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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

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

6 July 1999 (USA)

Also Known As:

Nido de cuervos

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

Did You Know?

Trivia

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

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Goofs

When looking over Dubose's novel, Lawson, as narrator, notes that a "murder" refers to a group of crows, like an "exaltation of doves." However, an exaltation refers to larks, not doves. Doves are either a "dole" (or "dule") or a "flight."

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Quotes

Lawson Russell: Drink, detective?
Clifford Dubose: Nah. Never touch it. Makes me happy.

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Connections

Remade as Fox (2009)

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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

Contrived but entertaining mystery

I liked Rowdy Herrington's movie for several reasons. There's a clever plot which has noirish and occult overtones, but which ultimately settles into the mystery genre (if it has to be allocated any). The scenario adopts a critical, post-OJ attitude towards criminal lawyers; but then there's a nice ironic twist at the end. There's good use of atmospheric (if a little hackneyed) New Orleans and Florida Keys locations. And for once there's an African-American in a leading role (Cuba Gooding Jr), with hardly any comment on it in the movie - apart from Eric Stoltz's unpleasant Southern rich guy referring to him as "boy".

To discuss the plot at all would reduce the fun for anyone who hasn't seen the movie. Yes, it's contrived and implausible, but only as much as you would expect in a movie of this kind. To those IMDb commenters, who didn't like the movie because Gooding's character does some dumb things, I would simply ask - where's the rule that says the main character has to be smart and have good judgment? Someone else has pointed out that the moral of the film is the simple "Honesty is the best policy"; but I think it adds the cynical words "except when you're on a murder rap"!