In an investigation of several cases in which convicts had been exonerated by DNA evidence afterward, the National Institute of Justice asserted that mainly eyewitness testimonies had been the most compelling evidence (Connors et al., 1996). Unfortunately, eyewitnesses’ memories are not immune to decay and distortions. Since eyewitnesses yield crucial and sometimes even the only available evidence in court, their testimonies are of critical importance for the juridical system.

This applies a fortiori, as faces are less alterable than clothes or even hair styles. This is one of the reasons why face recognition does play such a fundamental role for identification of a culprit. Our sensitivity for the small differences between facial characteristics is higher than for any other object category (O’Toole, 2005). We are able to remember a great amount of individual faces. Our face is a very salient part of our body and maybe the most memorable feature (Henke et al., 1994). However, there is still a long way to go before brain imaging can make a reliable contribution to court procedures. Several neuroimaging studies have been published in recent years and some progress was made connecting certain brain activation patterns with the correct recognition of an individual. These factors make the comparison of different cases, as well as the transfer of laboratory results to real live settings very challenging. But also face processing itself is modulated by different factors like facial characteristics, degree of familiarity, and emotional relation. Memory and therefore recognition of a person can be affected by many parameters and thus become distorted. On the other hand, face processing in non-criminal healthy persons can be of high juridical interest in cases of witnessing a felony and afterward identifying a culprit. Several studies investigating the underlying neural networks provided evidence for deviated face processing in criminal individuals, although results are often confounded by accompanying mental or addiction disorders. We are better able to distinguish between the differences of faces and their components than between any other kind of objects. Hurt and Weaver continue to investigate the murder together, and as they become more closely entwined, both of their lives are put in jeopardy.Humans are experts in face perception. Meanwhile, his paranoid, loose cannon of a friend James Woods has managed to get himself incriminated, although he had no involvement in the case. Although he reveals nothing more, she does become interested in him, and when her nefarious aristocratic boyfriend ( Christopher Plummer) learns from the unwitting woman that there's someone with knowledge of the murder, he's more concerned about what Hurt might know than about her relationship with him.

When she arrives at his building to interview the tenants about a murder that's occurred on the premises, the janitor, having discovered the body, implies that he knows more than he's saying in order to keep the newswoman interested. Fresh off the success of Breaking Away (1979), writer Steve Tesich and director Peter Yates re-team on a thriller starring a young William Hurt as a janitor infatuated with television reporter Sigourney Weaver.

Eye witness movie