Above Suspicion Review: - A Great Cast and Setting Tells A True Thriller

Release date: May 7, 2021
Running time: 107 minutes
Directed By: Phillip Noyce
Written By: Chris Gerolmo
Starring: Emilia Clarke, Jack Huston, Sophie Lowe, Thora Birch, and Johnny Knoxville  .

Based on the true story of one of the most notorious crimes in FBI history, this gritty crime-thriller stars Emilia Clarke (“Game of Thrones”) as Susan Smith, a young woman desperate to escape a seedy life of crime and drugs in a Kentucky coal mining town. When a newly minted FBI agent named Mark Putnam (Jack Huston, “Fargo”) recruits Susan as his informant for a high-profile case, she believes her bad luck may finally be changing. But as Susan and Putnam’s relationship deepens, so does the danger, setting them both on a collision course with deadly consequences.

Above Suspicion has a lot of components of a great movie.  The acting is very good, with many of the characters transforming for their roles.  Emilia Clarke continues to show why she is such an amazing actor with her change into Susan.  Jack Huston does a great job as a rising star agent who seems to have everything going for him.  And Johnny Knoxville was great to see in a more serious, muted role than you are used to with him.  The performances sell this film as does the setting, which doesn't try to do too much but gives you a great sense of this small town and how connected everyone is.  The setting feels perfectly cut from the time period of the film, and the little touches make you believe you are back in the late 80s.  The film also has a good sense of dread and great make up to let you see the gravity of the situation that Susan is in.  Some of her wounds look terrifyingly real and really help to sell just how dire the consequences of what she was doing were.

But although Above Suspicion has a lot of great components, it just doesn't come together in the end.  First, the film has a confusing start, throwing a lot of characters and some strange situations at you.  It can feel a little overwhelming at the start as you are introduced to so many individuals who are connected and even look similar.  And it also feels like the film was trying to portray Susan as a sympathetic character with the way that she was narrating the story.  But her actions and the performances in the film don't make the story so black and white.  As with everything in life, the story seems to put the impetus on several individuals in the story.  And although the narration tries to make one character come off as a bad person, the way the characters perform in the film make this supposed bad character much more sympathetic.  There is plenty of blame in this story but this is a rare film where I think a little more Hollywood-ification would have helped to sell the story and characters.  Had there been a few more selling touches and changes to the story, it might have made for an overall stronger experience.  In the end, I wasn't really rooting for anyone in the film, and when the conclusion happened it did not have as much of an emotional impact as I would have expected had I felt more personally invested in the plight of these individuals.  In the end you are left with an interesting story, but one that felt like it wanted to be both a drama and a documentary, but did not succeed at either.

Above Suspicion has a great setting and performances from this cast, but the overall story makes me suspicious that this film needed a little more Hollywood intervention.

Rent it.

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Above Suspicion is in Select Theaters and Everywhere You Rent Movies on May 7th; on Blu-ray and DVD May 18th.. For tickets, click here.

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