Jake Gyllenhaal, center, stars as Rusty in the Apple TV+ series Presumed Innocent. Gyllenhaal follows Harrison Ford, who performed in the role in the 1990 film adaptation of the Scott Turow novel., starring Harrison Ford as a crown prosecutor put on trial for the murder of his colleague , wouldn’t be made today.
, is the victim, Carolyn Polhemus. She’s a cunning and opportunistic prosecutor who slept with half the office, including Ford’s Rusty Sabich, to get ahead, and ends up dead. Bonnie Bedelia, who is perhaps most famous for playing Holly Gennaro in, is also present as Rusty’s wife, Barbara – once again playing a woman waiting for her wayward husband to find his way back to the coop.director Alan J. Pakula, seemed to be making a bold point in practice.
Things get going when a scene of calm domesticity is shattered by a phone call. Carolyn’s body is found bloodied and hogtied, a sight in shocking full display when Rusty rushes over in a panic to the scene. As in the original, Rusty is assigned to the case by his boss, Raymond , a district attorney who is up for re-election and wants to see swift justice to an explosive case compromising his campaign.He’s not the only one here operating with selfish motives.
He’s actually not. The eight-part series, of which seven episodes were provided for review, is at its best when cataloguing how cruelly narcissistic, careless and even misogynistic Rusty can be, and how much it pains Negga’s Barbara, and his children, to have to stand by him and be judged by their peers.