Suspect

TriStar Pictures | Release Date: October 23, 1987

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

53	METASCORE Mixed or average reviews based on 13 Critic Reviews

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

Bill Cosford

The movie is full of holes, but there's never time to worry about them, and everyone's having too good a time ducking in and out of the subplots anyway. [23 Oct 1987, p.D5]

Sheila Benson

If plausibility isn't at the very top of your list of requirements in a courtroom thriller, and if dashingly assured performances are, you can have a cheerfully good time at Suspect. [22 Oct 1987, p.1]

David Ansen

Like a TV movie, Suspect is aggressively and glibly topical, paying lip service to the plight of the homeless and the Vietnam vet. But the cast, which includes John Mahoney, E. Katherine Kerr and Joe Mantegna, is first rate, and the pace rarely flags. Take one salt tablet and enjoy. [26 Oct 1987, p.86]

Roger Ebert

Suspect is a well-made thriller, but it was spoiled for me by an extraordinary closing scene where Cher, as the defense attorney, solves the case with all of the logic of a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Read full review

Hal Lipper

Cher rips through this material, dragging the audience behind her. It's because of her that Suspect is so intoxicating and that the lapses in Roth's script are practically forgotten in the excitement. [23 Oct 1987, p.1D]

Janet Maslin

If Suspect amounts to less than the sum of its parts, those parts are often valuable on their own. Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

Suspect remains a routine Jagged Edge follow-up. Read full review

TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)

Despite some plausibility problems, the movie is well handled by director Peter Yates. There is no question that Suspect is capable of putting a lump in one's throat; the problem is that it's a little hard to swallow. Read full review

Dave Kehr

Suspect smothers in misapplied seriousness-it's the thriller as civics lesson. [23 Oct 1987, p.A]

Pauline Kael

Is there a piece of casting more ineffably Hollywood than Cher as a busy, weary public defender? She's all wrong for this role: her hooded, introspective face doesn't give you enough--she needs a role that lets her use her body.

Desson Thomson

For the most part, this case, which includes a convenient last-minute taped confession and a lifeless Cher-Quaid romance, should have been thrown out of court. Read full review

Hal Hinson

Suspect doesn't provide even the most basic pleasure that we've come to expect from thrillers -- it's doesn't get our pulse racing. For most of it, we're stuck in what must be the ugliest courtroom in the history of movies, and after a while, it becomes a drag on your spirits. Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

Art imitates art - and not very well - in Peter Yates' gimmicky suspense drama sabotaged by a flimsy script full of cliches. Read full review