sean connery stars as a harvard law professor who heads back into the courtroom , by way of the everglades , to defend a young , educated black man ( blair underwood ) . the guy is on death row for the murder of a white girl , and says that his confession was coerced from the region's tough , black cop ( lawrence fishburne ) . 
watching connery and fishburne bump heads for two hours is amusing enough , but the plot's a joke . 
there's no logic at work here . 
tone is also an issue -- there is none . 
director arne glimcher never establishes exactly what his film is trying to say . is it a statement on human rights ? is it a knock-off of silence of the lambs ? 
glimcher never tells . 
instead , he forces his characters to jump through hoop after hoop , over drawbridge after drawbridge , hoping that the audience won't notice what's missing . 
just awful . 
