Review: ABOVE SUSPICION is Phillip Noyce’s Worst-Ever Movie

In the late 1980s-1990s, Phillip Noyce delivered a slew of entertaining actioners, which include Blind Fury, an American interpretation of the highly popular Zatoichi series starring the late Rutger Hauer and his Jack Ryan diptych starring Harrison Ford: Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger, the very best on-screen Tom Clancy adaptations. After the highly underrated Salt in 2010, Noyce’s career took a rapid nosedive with The Giver—one of the dullest Young Adult book-to-screen adaptations released in the last decade. With his latest film, Above Suspicion, based on the true story of the murder of informant Susan Smith by FBI Agent Mark Putnam, Noyce doesn’t seem to care anymore. The film is a stagnant, repulsive and highly caricatured chronicle of a tragic event, featuring appalling performances from a star-studded cast.

Emilia Clarke plays Smith and narrates the film from the great beyond (the only time that ever worked was in Sunset Boulevard), which is already a sign that the movie isn’t going to be any good. She lives with her ex-husband Cash (Johnny Knoxville) with her two children and shares an abusive relationship with him, as Susan is addicted to hard drugs Cash is dealing. Mark Putnam is played by Jack Huston, and arrives in the town of Pikeville, Kentucky to solve a drug case, in which Susan Smith becomes his star informant. However, they both start to fall in love with one another and begin an affair, which will lead to Smith being obsessed with her. She will make sure to be the center of Putnam’s thoughts and attention, by constantly manipulating him, which will lead to her faking a pregnancy, and will ultimately be the cause of her demise. If the film focused on the murder as its central object, it could’ve been a quasi-interesting exploration on what led to Putnam committing the unthinkable, through the perspective of a decorated agent, but Above Suspicion desperately wants to impress by making Emilia Clarke its central figure, but her performance as Susan Smith is the worst she’s ever been.

I honestly don't understand what's the appeal for A-listers to star in films featuring a terrible script that objectifies its main star and mocks it as a caricature, instead of creating a gripping "forbidden love"/"obssessed" drama in the vein of Adrian Lyne's Fatal Attraction, in which Noyce seems to desperately want to do. The only reason any actor could accept in starring in a film like this would be a rather large sum of money involved, but is it really worth it if audiences and critics will dismiss the production quickly after starting to watch it? There's nothing of interest going on in Above Suspicion, a film riddled with clichés and terrible performances. Clarke, in particular, is on a whole another level of "bad", stuck in a almost Lynchian-like transe with a highly unconvincing southern accent becoming more laughable by the minute--especially during the last few scenes involving her and Huston. Speaking of Lynch, Chris Mulkey from Twin Peaks shows up in a terribly phonetic performance as Putnam's mentor, whose sole roal is to spew as much exposition as possible on the city before taking a backseat. 

The dialogue written by Chris Gerolmo is beneath Tommy Wiseau levels of bad, that even Wiseau himself wouldn't dare speak in any movie--filled with robotic, clichéd and revolting dialogue, constantly objectifying both central figures of the movie. For Putnam, Smith is nothing more than a sex object--which is exactly how Susan perceives Mark. This results in highly cyclical dialogues that never establish any form of character development or synergy between the two characters. Because of this, their relationship seems artificial and only serves to fill their self-centered character traits. It's bad enough to see a film that, for a while, tries to celebrate the affair between Mark and Susan with a slew of terribly shot and revolting sex sequences, but it's worse when both characters are immensly solipsistic. Scratch that--every character in Above Suspicion are solipsistic, without exception: even its most minor ones are only in it for themselves. Take Johnny Knoxville, for example, who is a highly skillful actor (and comedian) reduced to play the role of the egotistical, abusive ex-husband who offers nothing to further the development of Susan Smith's anguish-filled journey. 

Cash is only there to accentuate Smith's objectification through Putnam, through terribly uninspired dialogue and terribly staged situations of abuse, that feels exploitative and wholly sickening. No innnumerable sex or abuse sequences develop any of the characters, they seem to be only there to manifest unfulfilled desire from Putnam and Cash who perceive Susan as a sexual object. Clarke has nothing to do in this movie but spew out banal and laughable dialogue that turns its "drama" into pure unintentional comedy and the same can be said for everyone involved. But there's nothing funny in Above Suspicion: it's supposed to chronicle a murder that culminated a highly toxic affair. A movie like this shouldn't be treated with dialogue that reduces every scene to unintentional comedy and exploits tragedy to create some form of catharsis. When you chronicle tragedy, in any form, it should be treated with some form of respect for the victims and their families, even if the people involved in the affair had troubles. You can represent these troubles in a thoughtful light, in a way that doesn't feel sickening and/or repugnant. 

Because that's how I felt after watching Above Suspicion, a highly repugnant movie that doesn't care if it treats its subject matter with any form of decency, as it not only exploits its actors to perform repulsive sex sequences for pure exploitation, but also puts them in a terribly cyclical script without any sequence of character growth and/or development, never delving in the two main protagonists' psyche (even if Clarke pointlessly narrates the film). Any actor involved in this should remove this movie from their resume, and try to bury it as quickly as possible through other more memorable roles. Emilia Clarke will be in Marvel's Secret Invasion, which should revitalize her career and make everyone forget about this atrocity. As for Phillip Noyce, he needs to return to actioners as quickly as possible since it's what he's great at. Heck, maybe direct the next Tom Clancy adaptation, Rainbow Six, with Michael B. Jordan. Now that would be something. 

Above Suspicion is now playing in theatres and available to rent on video on demand.