Women of Action: Ashley Judd – Double Jeopardy

You’re more likely to find Ashley Judd at a high profile protest than a big budget movie these days but that doesn’t mean that she has lost her ability to draw a buck. In 1999, Ashley was one of the biggest female stars working and she decided to trade in her Morgan Freeman with a Tommy Lee Jones for just one movie. Don’t tell Morgan.

Double Jeopardy has been the kind of movie that I have watched many times over. I used to see it on cable TV on a regular basis and it filled the void left for me when Shawshank Redemption wasn’t playing. I think that Ashley Judd has an amazing appeal because she is beautiful but not in that “only in Hollywood” type of way. I can imagine walking by her on the street and not being shooed away by a trio of bodyguards.

Judd plays Libby, a mother and the wife of the wealthy Nick (Bruce Greenwood). As they’re vacationing together on a yacht, Libby wakes up to find Nick missing and a trail of blood on the boat that leads directly back to Libby. She ends up behind bars for the murder of her hubby only to find out that bastard faked it and is living with some other hussy. Libby starts training like that dude in Old Boy and eventually gets released on good behavior and starts planning her revenge. It’s the perfect set up to a movie and it makes it nice that Tommy Lee Jones is the man who is chasing her down. It ain’t no Fugitive but it might be better than U.S. Marshals.