Guilty as Sin

Though the title suggests a Jagged Edge-style thriller, Lumet has a taste for weightier courtroom dramas. Audiences expecting a legal thriller will get something deeper and darker, but if they stay long enough, they'll also get what they came for. Jennifer Haines (De Mornay), an ambitious lawyer with a killer instinct, meets her match in David Greenhill (Johnson), a 'ladies man' and alleged wife killer. Locked in a dangerous game with her seductive, manipulative client, yet bound by the rules of confidentiality, she slowly realises she was chosen for a reason: Greenhill knew he could push her buttons. Lumet and scriptwriter Larry Cohen emphasise the erotic tension and psychological cross-currents sparking between the couple. Regrettably, De Mornay resorts to quivering histrionics for Haines' slide from confident professional to hysterical victim, while the potentially fascinating battle, gives way to crass women-in-peril clichés, before finally tipping over the edge into melodrama.