Directed by Richard Marquand. Starring Glenn Close and Jeff Bridges.
In the grand tradition of mid-’80s courtroom thrillers that think a typewriter and some gavel banging are all you need to pass for suspense, Jagged Edge stumbles into the room like a hungover law student faking confidence in a bar exam. On the surface, it’s a whodunit wrapped in legal briefs, full of foggy bay windows, whispers of infidelity, and murder — all seasoned with a touch of erotic tension. But scratch that surface and you’ll find something closer to Perry Mason with a perm.
The story opens with a brutal murder — a socialite wife is found dead in her bed, tied up and stabbed. Her husband, Jack Forrester (Jeff Bridges), a newspaper magnate with cheekbones that could cut glass, is arrested for the crime. He insists he didn’t do it, of course. They always do. Enter Teddy Barnes (Glenn Close), a defense attorney with a moral compass so wobbly it might as well be a cocktail umbrella. She’s coaxed out of legal retirement by Jack’s old friend and defense attorney Sam Ransom (Robert Loggia, the human embodiment of a cigar). She doesn’t want to take the case at first, but Bridges does that thing with his eyes, and suddenly she’s playing legal footsie with a maybe-murderer.
Let’s talk about Jeff Bridges for a moment. He’s one of the few reasons Jagged Edge isn’t entirely a sedative. He smirks, he broods, he wears a trench coat like he was born in it. There’s something watchable about him even when the script is trying its hardest to wrap him in clichés. You want to believe Jack Forrester is innocent, if only because Bridges plays him like a man who’s constantly six seconds away from either sobbing or seducing you. It’s impressive how he walks the tightrope between sympathetic and sociopathic — like a golden retriever with secrets.
But the rest of the film? It’s a beige parade.
Glenn Close tries to hold the center together as Teddy, a woman haunted by a bad marriage, a sexist justice system, and hair that seems to get increasingly voluminous as her ethical dilemmas pile up. Close is a phenomenal actress, but here she’s given little to work with beyond suspicious glances and a word processor. Her character has one move: doubt. And she plays it on a loop. Should I trust him? Should I sleep with him? Should I wear this enormous shoulder pad into court? These are the big questions.
The sexual tension between Close and Bridges is supposed to be electric, but it plays more like a long, awkward HR violation. Their love scenes feel like something out of a sponsored CPR training video — lots of panting, no chemistry. You’re never quite sure what she sees in him, aside from the possibility he might not be a murderer. The bar is low.
And then there’s the courtroom drama. My God, the courtroom drama.
The movie spends about 60% of its runtime in courtrooms where everyone talks very slowly, very seriously, and with the kind of dramatic pauses you’d expect from a 9th-grade production of Twelve Angry Men. There’s nothing sharp about the legal work here. Witnesses are either flustered or smug, objections are frequent but flavorless, and the judge looks like he wandered in from a local Rotary Club meeting. Every time a new piece of evidence is introduced, it lands with all the impact of a soggy teabag.
The script, penned by Joe Eszterhas — the man who would later give us Basic Instinct and Showgirls — is a carnival of lazy misdirection. Red herrings are flung around like overcooked spaghetti. There’s an anonymous typewriter. Mysterious letters. An assistant with a past. A tape recorder. A suspicious ex-boyfriend. At one point, someone might as well walk into court and say, “I did it!” only to be hit by a stray bus. The twists are so contrived you can hear the gears grinding.
But the biggest sin of Jagged Edge is that it forgets to be fun. A murder mystery with courtroom theatrics and sexual intrigue should, at the very least, entertain. But this thing takes itself so seriously you start to feel guilty for being awake. It leans into prestige when it should have leaned into pulp. Instead of embracing the sleaze and suspense, it drowns in its own self-importance.
Even the cinematography feels like it’s working against you. Everything is filmed in that gray-blue, faux-sophisticated haze that screams “this is adult storytelling,” but it just ends up looking like everyone’s trapped inside a catalog for office lighting. The murder scene, which should’ve been shocking or at least memorable, is shot like a toothpaste commercial gone wrong. The blood looks like ketchup. The screams sound dubbed in from a different movie.
And then there’s the ending. Ah yes, the big twist.
Without spoiling too much — even though the statute of limitations on spoilers expired around the time Glenn Close did Fatal Attraction — let’s just say the reveal is both obvious and unearned. It’s the kind of twist you see coming halfway through the movie, but you keep hoping they won’t go there because it’s so lazy. And then they do. And you sigh. It’s like watching someone try to pull a rabbit out of a hat and instead pulling out a moldy sock.
Robert Loggia, bless him, is the only other standout in the cast. He chews the scenery like it owes him money. His character exists solely to shout things like “Dammit, Teddy!” and provide gruff comic relief. You could splice his scenes into any other legal thriller and they’d still make sense. He’s so committed, you wish the rest of the movie had followed his lead and just gone full schlock.
In the end, Jagged Edge is a thriller without thrills. A mystery without mystery. It’s a courtroom drama with all the drama of a tax audit. Bridges gives it a pulse, Close gives it professionalism, and Loggia gives it gravelly charm — but none of them can save a story that’s about as sharp as a butter knife.
If you’re in the mood for a 1980s legal thriller, you’re better off rewatching Presumed Innocent or The Verdict. At least those movies knew how to keep a viewer awake. Jagged Edge, despite its title, has no edge. Just jagged pacing, dull revelations, and a typewriter with better dramatic range than half the cast.
RATING: ★★☆☆☆ (2/5) — one star for Jeff Bridges, one for Robert Loggia’s gravel-throated grumbling, and a whole lot of contempt for the rest.
