I liked Rowdy Herrington's movie for several reasons. There's a clever plot which has noirish and occult overtones, but which ultimately settles into the mystery genre (if it has to be allocated any). The scenario adopts a critical, post-OJ attitude towards criminal lawyers; but then there's a nice ironic twist at the end. There's good use of atmospheric (if a little hackneyed) New Orleans and Florida Keys locations. And for once there's an African-American in a leading role (Cuba Gooding Jr), with hardly any comment on it in the movie - apart from Eric Stoltz's unpleasant Southern rich guy referring to him as "boy".
To discuss the plot at all would reduce the fun for anyone who hasn't seen the movie. Yes, it's contrived and implausible, but only as much as you would expect in a movie of this kind. To those IMDb commenters, who didn't like the movie because Gooding's character does some dumb things, I would simply ask - where's the rule that says the main character has to be smart and have good judgment? Someone else has pointed out that the moral of the film is the simple "Honesty is the best policy"; but I think it adds the cynical words "except when you're on a murder rap"!
To discuss the plot at all would reduce the fun for anyone who hasn't seen the movie. Yes, it's contrived and implausible, but only as much as you would expect in a movie of this kind. To those IMDb commenters, who didn't like the movie because Gooding's character does some dumb things, I would simply ask - where's the rule that says the main character has to be smart and have good judgment? Someone else has pointed out that the moral of the film is the simple "Honesty is the best policy"; but I think it adds the cynical words "except when you're on a murder rap"!