Ashley Judd as Libby, the woman wrongly accused of her husband’s murder, works out during her six-year sentence.

Wayne Lewellen, Paramount’s head of distribution, was having another great weekend. For the fourth time in a row, Double Jeopardy was the No 1 film in North America. And Lewellen was pretty sure he knew why.

“The simple concept of being able to walk up and shoot your husband on Main Street is something the public has really grabbed onto,” he told Daily Variety’s Dade Hayes. “It’s the same kind of basic question as the one about whether you would sleep with Robert Redford in Indecent Proposal.”

Four weeks in a row is pretty good. But Double Jeopardy was hardly a sleeper - not with that cast and director. It stars Tommy Lee Jones in a role very similar to the one for which he won an Oscar in 1993. In The Fugitive, he was the detective in relentless pursuit of wrongly convicted good guy Harrison Ford. In Double Jeopardy, he plays Travis Lehman, a parole officer in relentless pursuit of the wrongly convicted and equally good Ashley Judd.

What is more, the movie is directed by Bruce Beresford, twice nominated for an Oscar - and also the director of a movie (Driving Miss Daisy) which won four Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actress (Jessica Tandy), without the director getting the nod himself - an anomaly which was much commented on at the time.

“Mostly,” says the Australian-born Beresford, “I’ve made films that were character studies or that explored a particular moment in history that fascinated me. This is very different from anything else I’ve ever done. But I’ve always wanted to do a thriller.”

Double Jeopardy begins, however, by laying a few false trails. It starts with scenes of idyllic family happiness as Judd’s character, Libby, enjoys the good life in a lovely home on an island in Puget Sound with her lovely son, Matty (Benjamin Weir), and her loving husband, Nick (Bruce Greenwood). Thereafter, though, all of this is taken from Libby, bit by bit, in the first reel-and-a-half.

Ashley Judd as Libby stages a dramatic escape from a Puget Sound ferry with parole officer Tommy Lee Jones in reluctant tow.

First, Nick disappears, presumed dead, during a yachting weekend at sea, leaving the boat - and Libby - covered in blood. Not long afterwards, in what seems like a vicious turn of the screw, Libby herself is tried for and convicted of Nick’s murder.

Sent to prison, she has her best friend Angie (Annabeth Gish) adopt son Matty. Then Angie and Matty disappear, leaving no forwarding address. With a little help from her prison friends Margaret (Roma Maffia) and Evelyn (Davenia McFadden), Libby finally tracks them down on the telephone. Which is when she makes the discovery that brings her right down to rock-bottom - and also begins the main part of the movie: the discovery that Nick is still alive... and living with Angie.