

Bosses might do this in a range of ways by consciously or unconsciously embracing behaviours of certain fictional bosses. Whilst writers, directors and actors often draw upon their own personal experiences to represent how managers act in organizational life, these portrayals also feedback in to how these managers themselves construct their identities in the workplace.
#IMDB ABOVE SUSPICION 1995 TV#
Bosses are portrayed on-screen in countless different ways within our favourite TV shows and films that reflect the way we see them both positively and negatively in our daily lives. Now playing in select theaters and available on digital platforms.The influence of TV and film on the identity of the modern boss is undeniable. (They probably already have.) It’s just a shame Susan Smith’s story will be a footnote in their careers. Shot ages ago and delayed multiple times, it’s the kind of project that people like Clarke and Huston can walk away from and pretend never really happened.
#IMDB ABOVE SUSPICION 1995 MOVIE#
Ultimately, “Above Suspicion” fails the test of a true story film in that reading about the actual case is more interesting than watching the movie about it. As if to compensate for the flat storytelling, it’s often over-edited and over-shot, with extremely sweaty close-ups meant to increase tension but only calling attention to themselves.

The whole cast feels under-directed outside of Clarke with familiar faces like Sophie Lowe, Johnny Knoxville, and Chris Mulkey barely making an impact. It’s a non-performance from a typically interesting actor who seems bored at times by the entire production. It does a disservice to Smith’s story.Īs for Huston, he too seems under-directed, playing Putnam as a man who goes through the motions more than he does a monster or even an attention-grabber who so desperately wanted to have it all-the family, the girlfriend, the high-profile arrests, and all only on his own terms. “Above Suspicion” isn’t brutal enough, it isn’t dark enough, and the stakes don’t feel high enough. Smith’s story is one of violence and broken dreams, one in which she replaced one garbage male with another who she thought was at the other end of the social spectrum but turned out to be just as awful. The characters of "Above Suspicion" are not quite hillbilly caricatures but they verge so closely to them that you can see overqualified actors like Clarke struggling against the superficial script and filmmaking choices. Bluntly, and like that film, I never bought that any of these people were real. The whole project has a sense of “hillbilly dress-up” not unlike a certain divisive Ron Howard film of last year. Clarke does her best to hold it together but is woefully miscast and Noyce can’t get her to the right place regarding the darker issues of this story like addiction, spousal abuse, and shocking violence of the final act. Neither seems quite comfortable in their roles. In this tragically dull recounting of events, Emilia Clarke (“Game of Thrones”) plays Smith and a fellow HBO drama alum in Jack Huston ("Boardwalk Empire") plays Putnam.
#IMDB ABOVE SUSPICION 1995 HOW TO#
There’s more than enough meat on the bones of this true story for a film like “Above Suspicion,” but director Phillip Noyce can’t figure out how to tell it in a way that's more interesting than a Wikipedia entry. He was arrested in 1990 and the case is credited as the first time an FBI agent was convicted of murder. When Putnam tried to end things after he no longer really needed her, Smith threatened to expose him, and the FBI agent killed his informant girlfriend. For extra income and a sense of self-importance, Smith was excited to help Putnam, and the two formed a relationship that turned sexual. In 1987, a young hotshot FBI agent named Mark Putnam moved to the area to try and track down a local bank robber, and he crossed paths with Smith, turning her into an informant that allowed him to break multiple cases in the area. In the ‘70s, as a teenager, Smith hooked up with a Kentucky drug dealer named Kenneth Smith and found herself deeply embedded in the local drug scene, one that was growing with prescription drugs and other illegal substances.
