Beyond Reasonable Doubt

‘You wouldn’t want me to confess to something I didn’t do, would you? Would you?’ But that’s just what Inspector David Hemmings does want in this true tale of Rough Justice Down Under, based on a controversial court case involving a New Zealand farmer charged with a double killing, which occupied the country’s courts from 1970 till the Prime Minister’s pardon in 1979. This modest but enjoyable film wears its pessimistic noir trappings well: cops who believe everyone’s got something to hide, everybody’s guilty, and rigging evidence and jury lists accordingly; the wife who almost cracks under the strain; most of all, the lack of faith in the truism that justice will out. —Time Out Film Guide