■ The title "Just Cause," of course, it should be considered that this does not refer only to the revenge of the murderer Bobby Earl against Katie Armstrong ( Scarlett Johansson ). If one were to think of it that way, the film would be a simplistic tale of nothing more than a revenge story about a man who has had his pubic region castrated, and the room for interpretation would be greatly narrowed.
■ In this case, the "Just Cause" is the "Just Cause of the murders" of not only Bobby Earl ( Blair Underwood ), but also serial killer Blair Sullivan ( Ed Harris ), who is also on death row with Bobby, and Paul Armstrong ( Sean Connery ), who believes Bobby is innocent and is trying to prove his innocence. We should think of them as "Just Cause of the three murders".
■ First, of the three murders, the ostensible mainstay of the story is the case of Bobby Earl. He had been arrested for the kidnapping of a woman before the murder ( Paul is struggling to prove Bobby's innocence in this case ) of the girl Joanie, the cause of his imprisonment. The prosecutor in that previous case was Paul's wife, Katie ( who was single before marrying Paul ), and she was unable to overcome the not guilty plea by Bobby's defense attorneys, and Bobby was acquitted.
■ However, Bobby was assaulted by the townspeople ( and possibly the cops ) and lost his pubic region, so in order to get revenge on Katie he arranged with Blair Sullivan to successfully trick Paul into exonerating him ( Bobby had in fact killed the girl ). Then Bobby is released and goes on to kill Katie and her daughter Laurie.
■ During this process ( 1~6 ), serial killer Blair Sullivan confesses that he killed the girl in order to exonerate Bobby Earle ( Blair had already been sentenced to death, so he helped Bobby ), and in this exchange, he also confesses his "Just Cause of Murder ( I kill because I want to kill )"( 4~6 ). Perhaps Sullivan's "Cause without Cause" is closer to the "Truth" of the film than Bobby's. Because it is simple cause, it shows the heinousness that can no longer be justified, that is no longer "Just Cause of Murder".
■ The thing that is an extension of Sullivan's "Cause without Cause" is Paul's "hidden inside". Shortly before scenes 1~6, there is an interesting conversation between the two ( 7~12 ). Sullivan turns to Paul and says, "You have the eyes of a murderer. This scene should not be viewed with cold eye as an imitation of the scene between Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling in "Silence of the Lambs". Because this scene reveals much more than that.
■ At first glance, Paul Armstrong is treated as if he were a potential murderer with no " Cause of Murder" whatsoever. What does this mean? Perhaps since there is no "Cause of kill", the film depicts situation in which the more fundamental humanity is at stake : not "Cause to kill", but "Desire to kill".
■ What is most eerie about this film is that the "Cause to kill" has turned into "Desire to kill" in Paul. To summarize, in Bobby's case, the "Cause to kill" is plain and simple : revenge. Second, in Sullivan, the "Desire to kill" is almost always present, but the transition from "Cause to kill" to "Desire to kill" is indicated in the sense that he sympathizes with Bobby's desire to take revenge. Finally, in Paul, "the paradoxical inversion" is shown in that, he had moved to the potential position where he can easily have "Desire to kill" instead of needing any "Cause" because he is the furthest away from killing.
■ Ordinary people do not commit murder not because they are physically incapable of doing so, but only because they are morally and legally prohibited from doing so. Fundamentally, people are only aware that they have the capability to carry out killing, but they let it lie dormant at the bottom of themselves. A person who is clearly aware and convinced of this power is capable of committing murder even if he has no "Cause to kill". He is convinced that the power to kill is within him. Human being could be traversed in the "Time of conviction" when such "Dark power" drives one to the horrible acting out.
■ The frightening consequence of this is that "Desire to kill" cannot be suppressed by the ethical norm that one should not kill. "Desire to kill" is not Desire to do something that cannot be done, but Desire to do something because one "understands" that it can be done. In other words, when one understands that it is possible for some action to become the Reality, it is exactly what the "Desire to kill" is, to materialize that desire by choosing to kill, even if there is no reason to do so. Or to put it another way, some people are motivated by the "distorted self-realization" that they can do the most powerful ethical prohibitions that others would not dare to do.
■ In this sense, Paul's debate at the beginning of the film as an abolitionist lawyer, however, it represents "the inverted message" of his own hidden desire : the desire to kill. In the end, Paul kills Bobby Earl, a man who has put his wife and daughter in danger. To be precise, Paul does not kill Bobby Earl, but Bobby is eaten to death by a crocodile that lurks in the swamp.
■ We should note the significance of this. In other words, Paul's "Desire to kill" is hidden from us, the audience, by the fact that the crocodile takes Bobby's life at the end, even though Paul had intended to kill him. With this last scene, the film depicts the fundamental desire of human beings, but seems to keep a lid on it so that the audience does not realize that it is their own. However, we, the very audience, should realize that we are the same as Paul, who is unaware of his own desire !
