Physical Evidence

Physical Evidence is a crime thriller about a suspended police officer, Joe Paris, who becomes the prime suspect when a man he knew is found murdered. With his record and his history of conflict with the victim working against him, Paris is assigned a court-appointed defense attorney, the inexperienced Jennifer Hudson, who sets out to prove his innocence. As the case against him builds, the two work to piece together what happened, and their investigation puts them in danger.

The film was directed by Michael Crichton, the sixth feature he directed, following Westworld, Coma, The First Great Train Robbery, Looker and Runaway. Bill Phillips wrote the screenplay, Martin Ransohoff produced, and Burt Reynolds and Theresa Russell lead the cast as Paris and Hudson, with Ned Beatty, Kay Lenz, Ted McGinley and Tom O'Brien among the credited performers. Columbia Pictures released the film in January 1989, and it runs 99 minutes.

Made for a budget of 17 million dollars, the film returned about 4 million dollars worldwide. On IMDb it holds a rating of 5.2 from roughly 2,300 votes, and on TMDB 5.1 from a much smaller number of votes. A critics' rating of 4.8 from 18 reviews places it below both audience scores.