Similarly, the film itself is a little like military music: competent, safe and easy to follow. In other words, it’s got a good beat and it’s easy to march to. But those looking for anything beyond a routine potboiler likely will be disappointed.

Ashley Judd stars as Claire Kubik, a proficient Marin County attorney who shares an ideal life with husband Tom (James Caviezel, effectively playing another haunted, distant character). When the FBI disrupts their cozy existence with a massive choreographed arrest, Claire finds out that her mate of many years might not be the man he claims to be.

According to the military, Tom Kubik is a former Marine officer who went AWOL after spearheading a 1988 massacre of civilians in El Salvador. Claire races to the defense, aided by the inevitable court-appointed lawyer Kubik’s rube? who never won a case (Adam Scott) and a private attorney (Morgan Freeman) who is known as a “thorn in the side” of the military … at least when he’s sober enough to show up for trial. But Tom’s enemies have apparently framed him as the fall guy in a cover-up that reaches to the top brass.

Based on the novel by Joseph Finder, “High Crimes” mixes elements of martial trial films (“A Few Good Men,” “Rules of Engagement”) with edgy conspiracy thrillers (“Enemy of the State”). Despite the level of talent behind and in front of the camera, the end result is invariably flat. The twists and red herrings of the plot are so telegraphed to the viewer that they hit the screen with the detached precision of a bus schedule.

The script (by Yuri Zeltser and Cary Bickley) comes up with a few brilliant caveats, such as the legal means by which the good guys prove the date a covert marine operative once sustained an injury. But these intricacies are balanced with irrationality, and often with unmitigated stupidity.

For instance, Claire and her collaborators are subject to home-invasion beatings and repeated vehicular attempts on their lives, yet they continue to walk alone to their cars at night. Surely a hotshot West Coast attorney could afford a private security guard to escort her to her Lexus. It’s a safe bet that Judd doesn’t go anywhere in public without one herself.

Director Carl Franklin has made some real standouts in his decade-long career, including the Walter Mosley adaptation “Devil in a Blue Dress” with Denzel Washington and the underrated thriller “One False Move” that introduced Billy Bob Thornton to mainstream audiences. Franklin must have a good rapport with actors, because all the performances in the film are convincing (though Amanda Peet’s role as Claire’s ding-a-ling sister could be politely dubbed extraneous).

Yet the cinematic techniques he employs slow motion, black and white, 8 mm footage, jump cuts seem to no avail. They come across as a means of force-feeding a little artsiness into a story that can’t manifest any of its own.

All this flash would be even less necessary if the filmmakers had focused on fashioning a drama around how Claire’s mastery of civilian law is diluted when placed into a military courtroom setting. This tactic is briefly and effectively touched on during the first pre-trial scene when she must be schooled in unfamiliar procedures by her greenhorn accomplice, and it hints at what “High Crimes” could have been. Then it’s cast aside like a spent clip to get back to the real story involving shadowy stalkers, frequent fistfights and “surprise” revelations.