Film: “Nothing More Dangerous Than A Fool With a Cause” — The John Grisham Film Adaptations of The 1990s.
From 1993 to 1997, six Grisham film adaptations were released, all featuring top box office draws in lead roles, all but one generally considered successful pictures, both in terms of box office and broader critical response (though there is a definite range), and three earning Oscar nominations for acting. Directors included Frances Ford Copolla and Sydney Pollock. Stars were the most-sought-after young faces of the day. Most are set in Memphis, all have some action in the south. Each tells the story of a idealistic young lawyer taking on the corruption of either a corporation, the law practice itself, or the government.
***
I would call it a franchise. While it’s not, by traditional standards, it is in the same sense that you might say that Van Damme films are, or that Deep Blue Sea, Lake Placid, and Anaconda are. Grisham adaptations, like such sets can feel interchangeable, are pledging the same pleasures to the audience, and include variations on similar themes, motifs, and tropes. Unlike those informal franchises, the 1990s film adaptations of John Grisham’s books are also, by and large, A-list projects, a bastion of a kind of movie that one doesn’t really see any more. It was a uniquely American hybrid: a combination of the paranoid political chase thriller, whose heyday was some 20 years prior, and the legal drama, which existed but had never boasted the credibility that a Grisham story suggests (and, generally, narratively, achieves).
Here is a breakdown of the batch. (and if you want to, you can skip down until you see the bolded numbers and bullets of the list itself)
***
Before we get started, let’s talk the Grisham of it all. To be purposefully brief with the background here, since it’s been better fleshed out by plenty of other articles: John Grisham is a proper homegrown success story — the kind that seems worth rooting for. A lawyer and a Southerner, he was a jobbing attorney, far from any aroma of “coastal elitism”, writing fiction in his spare time, as a hobby, and eventually selling his first book, A Time to Kill in 1989. Prior to this, the manuscript was rejected some 28 times, and even once the small Wynwood picked it up for publication, was given a small run — 5,000 copies, in June of 1989.
From there, Grisham’s success was immediate, connecting with readers, and creating a popular literary monoculture unlike anything seen before: highbrow enough to be a proud title to carry if you were the intellectual type, and full of sweaty-pulpy thrills, courtroom gasps, and chases with hired killers to satisfy your layperson with no desire for a highfalutin’ exploration of the human condition.
From 1994 through 2000, A Grisham book was the top selling book of the year in the US. His work was brisk, consumable, rich, moral, and most of all — credible. The man was a lawyer writing about the law. His works might be as much parable and fantasy as To Kill a Mockingbird in terms of their ideals, but the technical precision and density didn’t scare off your average reader. There was a sense, an a kindly one, that the masses could handle something substantial, and still have fun with it. It was an unspoken sweetheart deal for the country and for Grisham himself. Good pop fiction can enrich society. What Crichton did for speculative and sci fi, or Nora Ephron scripts for the modern romantic comedy, Grisham did for legal thrillers. As satisfying, tidy, action-packed and ludicrous as you could ever want, but the math is right.
*****
***
Cinematically speaking, of the lot, there is one which I would call the clear finest, and one which I would call the clear shabbiest, but even so, this is a set of effective films.
These are broad, knotty thrillers, each surrounding the entry of a young idealist into the wider world of law, governance, corporate power, and the hit men that Grisham would have us convinced silently enforce all of these structures, paid by one side or the other.
In the case of The Firm, The Chamber, A Time to Kill, and The Rainmaker, this person is a lawyer. Three of these also directly begin with the lawyer finishing law school, or fresh out.
There is usually an older, wiser mentor figure, one who might remain a source of wisdom, or who might prove evil. On the other end of the scale, there is the manifestation of Bad Lawyers: charming, wealthy, entitled men of a certain era who believe that no whippersnapper has the right to come in here and challenge their ability to continue doing their corrupt business as usual.
In two cases (A Time to Kill, The Chamber), there are explicit reckonings with hate crimes, and with the racial divisions still ailing the heart of the American south.
***
Below, general things will be spoiled, such as naming which actor might be a villain or who might have a great death, but I will not discuss the endings/outcomes of the plots.
***
Let’s get into it: Chronological Order
The Firm — 1993 (July), Dir. Sydney Pollock.
Length: 2 hrs 34 minutes — The first and longest of the set. Doesn’t feel it, I’d say The Pelican Brief feels like the longest, for what it’s worth.
Rated: R For language and some violence. How languagey and violent? Not especially. But it has the most striking murder scene of all, as Jigsaw himself (Tobin Bell) takes out Gary Busey.
What Goes On?:
Tom Cruise’s idealistic young lawyer, newly married to a wife who comes from money, is a shaky lil’ duckling in a big legal pond when he joins up — for big money — with a Memphis firm. Soon, his is approached by various outside forces/groups which would have him believe that not everything at the charming, old fashioned firm is as it seems.
Legal Parable or Conspiracy Thriller?
Even split. Evenest of the bunch.
Heroic Lawyer:
Mitch McDeere, fresh-faced, looking for a firm to make his home, refuses to do anything improper, faces a murderer’s row of villains.
Is the villain an Evil, Old School Lawyer/Businessman/Politician?:
So many villains here.
You could say that boss of the firm, Hal Halbrook (the Twainmaker! Thank you.), is the real big bad. Then again there’s the driving, crush-whatever’s in my way Ed Harris as an FBI tough. As Jason Mantzoukas would remind us: if you don’t want us to know who the villain is, don’t cast Ed Harris in your film. But then, there’s Wilford Brimley as the fixer/security head/clean-up man for the firm, and sometimes he’s the villain, sort of? Oh, and the assassins, and I’m still not entirely positive who pays them. Wait, and the mob shows up at one point, as the True Guys Behind All The Mess.
Wild Card Who is a Real Rascal that Can’t Tuck a Shirt In But Knows All The Ins and Outs?:
You better Busey believe it. In this case, it’s another lawyer who knows certain stuff, is allergic to scruples, and owes a favour. Great shabby neutral chaotic pal, and it energizes the middle of this long film.
When his character takes, eh, early retirement, the energy is transferred to Holly Hunter’s character, a gum-chewing, blunt assistant type who becomes a surprisingly useful friend of the cause as McDeere begins to fight back against the powers that be.
What Sets it Apart?:
The Firm is an odd one. The material feels like that a first novel, moreso than A Time to Kill does. It has the core solid details of entering legal life and these ring true: the audience gets an inside-baseball look at how a major firm woos a young lawyer, giving him a furnished home with handwritten note inside, pulling his wife into the social circles of “the wives”, recommending that they have a baby soon, and we here the numbers on salaries and such. This all has the air of credibility that Grisham does well, and it’s satisfying every time to vicariously experience. But once the questions build, they keep splitting their trajectories, leading to a preponderance of threats, and the silliest (assassins, mob) just don’t have that same touch of veracity. Like many strong films, it suffers the irony of more is less: overstuffing ends up giving us less, less of a throughline of what to care about. I mean, I haven’t even gotten to the McDeere’s Secret Convict Brother of it all. That’s what I mean when I say it feels like a first book: Grisham’s covering every base so hard that it feels like a young writer not trusting their main storyline; or simply being too in love with the excitement of a new thread to weave in.
Memphis or not Memphis?
McDeere moves to Memphis for the job, you betcha.
How Far Does The Conspiracy Go?:
Perty far! In this case, the firm itself is suspect, and maybe involved in corruption. Feds are watching. Mob is watching. We’re not dealing with D.C. here, but it’s a Big Ole Conspiracy.
We Got Assassins Chasing Our Hero?:
You better believe it, baby. They pop up every now and then to take someone out. Weapon of choice: good ole’ fashioned guns.
The Judge: a Real Crank?
If there’s a cranky judge in The Firm, I don’t remember him/her. There’s surely a judge, but, again, this is mostly out of the courtroom, chases in warehouses, wires and secret microphones, that sort of thing. Oh, and stuff in the Caymans every now and then. Memphis lawyers in The Firm seem to make up a good percentage of the Cayman’s tourism industry, god bless.
Favourite Moment:
There’s a beautiful line here that suggests Grisham’s genius. McDeere visits his prison-bound brother (a gnarled-up David Strathairn, who can’t help looking like a handsome stray dog came to life. The guy has always been about one Monster can away from being Very Sexy, but then, so mellow. So reck…ful.)
Anyhow, the imprisoned brother inquires of their mother:
“She still in Florida? With that same guy?”
To which McDeere replies: “They’re all that same guy”.
There’s two lines of succinct, snappy dialogue that gives us a full snapshot of their mother, them as brothers, and their childhood.
Any Misfires?:
There’s some weirdly off-putting business about infidelity, and the person it involves doesn’t seem to be suited to the act, nor does the secret add tension, as it’s pretty much admitted too soon after. It’s kind of a crucial early moment that just feels odd and unlikely.
Oscar Noms?: I didn’t look this up until afterward, and was genuinely surprised that it’s Holly Hunter for supporting actress. As an actor, she’s terrific, and I’ll always preach the good word of Broadcast News, and, well, anything she’s ever done. But there’s such a clutter of goony supporting roles here, I just didn’t pick her out as the one. Considering that the same year, she took the lead actress statue for Jane Campion’s masterly The Piano, this puts her in rarified air, with dual nods that year, a la Jamie Foxx in 2004 (Ray, a lead win, and Foxx’s best performance ever, his incredible work in Collateral, a supporting nom) and Scarlett Johansson in 2019 (Marriage Story, lead, Jojo Rabbit, supporting).
Summary/ grade: I give it a 7 out of 10 (that’s a strong grade for me, by the by). It’s proper legal tale, and proper conspiracy thriller. There’s no consolidated villain/source of menace, and very little courtroom, but the plot tracks, feels sufficiently “big”, full of good details, and this is prime Cruise. It somehow feels less self serious, a bit more rote, and frankly, that ages it a bit better for me.
2. The Pelican Brief — 1993 (December), Dir. Alan J. Paluka
Length: One million years. (2 hours 21 minutes)
Rated: PG-13 for momentary language and some violence.
What Goes On?: A pair of sitting supreme court justices are killed, sparking a series of political calculations and suspicions. A brilliant, precocious law student (Roberts) passes on a theory about it to her professor, which through a series of events is passed all the way up the chain…to…the…very…top. Now she’s in danger, and an idealistic reporter (Washington) and she go on the run.
Legal Parable or Conspiracy Thriller?: This one is almost all thriller, no gavel. Nary an objection is sustained nor overruled (or I’ve forgotten them). We’re in the realm of senators, intellectuals, barroom deals, mysterious deaths, helicopters, the capital itself, scandals that could topple everything, etc.
With this many suspicious Powerful White Men, it’s a wonder we’re Bruceless (neither McGill nor Altman make an appearance). If there’s a case argued in a courtroom in this movie, I’ve forgotten it, though The Law and how it oversees governmental proceedings colour all proceedings.
Heroic Lawyer: Well, law student, at least. Legal thinker. Darby Shaw doesn’t get a moment to protest about how she believes in justice, but she is as dogged, quietly determined, and focused on revealing the truth as anyone else. And she may be our only prodigy in the batch: we’re told that other protags are good, are sharp, are wanted, but she’s sort of singled out as being such a savant as to be dangerous to those in power simply by her genius thoery.
Is the villain an Evil, Old School Lawyer/Businessman/Politician?: As this is heavy on the thriller side, it’s a few folks, and their identities are hidden for a bit. But suffice it to say that they smoke cigars, joke about golf, and such.
Wild Card Who is a Real Rascal that Can’t Tuck a Shirt In But Knows All The Ins and Outs?: Not really. This may be the most joyless adaptation (I’m sorry to be coming down on it so singularly, it’s fine). There’s not much room for wit here. But in terms of our killers… (see the Assassins section)
What Sets It Apart?
One of only two Black leads in the set (along with Sam Jackson in A Time To Kill), or three if you count Danny Glover in The Rainmaker, and frankly, I’m inclined to.
The only one of the set without a practicing lawyer as its lead or co-lead.
Grisham wrote the Darby Shaw part with Roberts in mind.
Memphis or not Memphis?
Not. But we get all chase-y and murder-y in New Orleans at one point. Do I recall why? You honour, I do not.
How Far Does The Conspiracy Go?: All the way up. This is the largest and most cynical of the batch in terms of scope. I would argue that other entries are more damning because they are smaller and more real, but this is Grisham giving us his run at a massive and nation-wide conspiracy.
That’s the thing: when you make your characters go through so much with such high stakes that in the final moment they can just be cradled in an ambulance bay while sirens blare and you know the whole shebang is up, it’s less consequential than a smaller story about someone who may have to give testimony and leave forever to witness protection simply for bringing down a crime syndicate or organization. Sometimes more is less.
We Got Assassins Chasing Our Hero?: Hell yes: The Tucc is loose! Stanley Tucci joins Anthony LaPaglia (in The Client) in Grisham’s fever dream of hit-men who are also hot, hot, sexy dancefloor bros with tank tops under their leather jackets, slicked-back hair, and — one can only assume — a hot calzone from mama in the glove box, next to their switchblade.
The Judge: No trial here. I think.
Favourite Moment: Everything looks great, via Pakula. Any quiet convo between Denzel and Roberts is fun to watch for them in their rising-star glory. Both are masterful in their control. Charisma isn’t the opponent of subtlety — that’s what makes a star a star.
Any Misfires?: No real gaffes, just a well-made but relatively lifeless movie.
Oscar Noms?: Guess there wasn’t a showy-enough supporting role.
Summary/ grade: 6 out of 10. It somehow stars the most commanding, charismatic lead actor of the era (Denzel) in a dull role, and on the whole, loses power by being too big. The game is given away. Grisham is not a thriller guy — all those alleyway/warehouse chases are the dullest part of his usual legal potboilers, and here, they’re the whole game. As for the “pelican” of it all, it tracks when you dig into it, but boy does that not snap as a “genius plot device”, and for a reason. It’s just not that clever.
3. The Client — 1994, Dir. Joel Schumacher
Length: 1 hour, 59 minutes.
Rated: PG-13 for a child in jeopardy and brief language.
What Goes On?: Grisham’s Witness riff: A poor Memphis 11 year old is accidentally brought into the final moments of a mobbed-up lawyer’s life. Soon the feds, and everyone else, is looking for him to find out what he heard before the man died.
Stubborn and jaded, he turns to a local attorney who has issues of her own — but also the gumption to face the powers that be.
Legal Parable or Conspiracy Thriller?: Somewhere in the middle. There’s legality a-plenty, from case type to the details of how and when you question someone, to the status of various folks as counsel. There’s even courtroom moments, with objections and all. But broadly, we’re closer to Witness territory here: it really is a kind of Terminator tale with a boy that various folks want silenced trying to make his way, and a half-washed up lawyer doing her best to protect him.
Heroic Lawyer: Reggie Love, a classic Grisham hero: she’s tough, blunt, soft-hearted, and a Tennessee gal through and through. She’s been through the ringer and come out clean. She had her dark days, but now practices the law and dreams of getting her kids back. She’s not above some half-unethical means if it lets her stand up, speak strong, and put the bad guys in their place.
Is the villain an Evil, Old School Lawyer/Businessman/Politician?: We have some of that. While not an agent of the crime, threat, or real badness in this film, Tommy Lee Jones’ Roy Foltrigg is nonetheless an antagonist, bothering and preening and pushing our protagonists as they go. He’s sort of the grinning slickster you love to hate until you need him, and then, hey: he ain’t actually bad, not like that.
Wild Card Who is a Real Rascal that Can’t Tuck a Shirt In But Knows All The Ins and Outs?: In a way, this role is folded up into our protag, Reggie Love. In making her slightly older and more experienced than the average greenhorn in a Grisham flick, they also afford her the layering to be a little shakey, blustery wit confidence but a lush, with a history. This makes her sort of a dormant Rascal Helper. A recovered one, and who can carry the case.
How Far Does The Conspiracy Go?: The Client is interesting here. From the get-go, we’re opposed to the Federal investigation. It’s hard to say why. Sure, their approach is skeevy and Jones’ Roy Foltrigg is labeled as attention-loving, but aside from their attempt to convince a kid to just squawk without his lawyer (correctly derided as unethical), it’s hard to say why we should dislike them. Don’t get me wrong, they’re sleazy and slick and come in a pack, and you want to slap them. As for the rest? It goes no further than the (mostly unseen) mob. No systematic corruption here.
We Got Assassins Chasing Our Hero?: You bet. Do they dress like they just finished laundry and are heading to a Night at the Roxbury? They do. Here we have the wonderful Anthony LaPaglia as Barry “The Blade” Muldano., who sort of chews gum and tank tops through a number of threatening moments during which he brandishes his knife and shakes his head left to right, real beat-y, real jazzy.
More disturbing is Kim Coates. Honestly, there was another guy also, but it got too cluttered and I stopped caring.
Coates has a scene in an elevator with young Brad Renfro’s Mark Sway where I genuinely just thought of the actors the whole time, telling myself Coates must have reassured young Renfro, how they had a snack after, how they laughed. Call me old, but that’s my life now — I had to imagine it. A knife to a kid’s throat is not an easy watch, and to Coates’ credit, he’s properly unnerving in the scene.
Favourite Moment: The Client has a number of crowd-pleasers. From the establishment of Reggie Love as a woman in a man’s world onward, we have opportunities for her to stick it to the man. For me, the finest scenes are when she first meets young Mark, and later, when they bond at her house over a cigarette (oh if you think we don’t got children smokin’ here, you ain’t been to Grisham country before, child). These quiet characters moments aren’t just strong: they’re great, and Renfro gives a pretty unimpeachable, true-felt performance. (Sadly, this ability to portray a tortured soul bore out in his short life).
Any Misfires?: Again, this is more about my personal taste than the filmmaking or writing, but I found the rating of pg-13 to be misleading. “a child in danger” doesn’t signify how intensely, from the get-go a young person is put through deeply upsetting things. We’re in mature territory from the get-go, and the opening sequence in which Mark is thrown into a car, made to watch an older adult drink and attempt to gas them both, and then has a gun thrust in his face is the most disturbing violence of all of these films, apart from The Chamber’s bomb and A Time to Kill’s descriptions of an unspeakable crime — both R rated films.
Then, you have the villains referring to the female leads as “the b*tch lawyer” throughout, over and over, with particular hate. We understand that it’s signaling their villainy, but their, er, habit of casual murder accomplishes that just fine. It’s a writing choice. And a valid one, if that’s what you want to accomplish. This world: it’s nasty business. I’m not saying it shouldn’t seem nasty. I’m just saying, rate it R.
Oscar Noms? A big one! Sarandon’s lead nod. And I’d say Jones is good enough to earn one, too. Frankly, so is Renfro in his first role.
Summary/ grade: 7.5 out of 10. I watched this after most of the others, and I thought I was pretty Grisham-ed out. But I wasn’t! It’s solid. Very good, even. The chase-y-stuff that goes on too long? Just do the dishes. The core? Pretty special.
4. A Time to Kill — 1996 (June), Dir. Joel Schumacher
Length: 2 hours and 29 minutes.
Rated: R for Violence and Some Graphic Language
What Goes On?: This is an ice-tea on the porch, fan the sweat off yourself in court Southern Gritty Legal Noir, and it hits each quadrant head on. We’re nowhere near the big city, not even Memphis, out in Clanton, Mississippi, and we’ve just met both of our protagonists as they go about their lives on opposite sides of the tracks, when a horrific inciting incident robs one of life as he knew and it and thrusts the other into his corner as his lawyer. These are Samuel Jackson’s Carl Lee Hailey and Matthew McConaughey’s Jake Tyler Brigance.
The plot surrounds Brigance defending Hailey who has publically killed the two local ne'er-do-wells who raped and nearly hung his young daughter. As both men delve into the case, their lives, and the town, and justice, will face the reality of how justification is seen when it comes to the colour of a victim — or a perpetrator’s — skin.
Legal Parable or Conspiracy Thriller?: Legal parable, about as full-tilt on this end of the scale as we’ll find in the set.
Heroic Lawyer: Strikingly, but importantly, McConaughey’s Brigand is the only father and family man of all our films. (The Cruise character, the only other married fellow, is freshly wed in The Firm but he’s seduced away from that life as the firm consumes his world, and his happy home is quickly in jeopardy.) Here Brigand is young, honest, and passionate, but also has a wife and young daughter of his own, torturing him with the ability to imagine being in his client’s position.
Is the villain an Evil, Old School Lawyer/Businessman/Politician?: Opposing council is a maximum-sleazey Kevin Spacey, who knows the game and sets things up with glib facts about the racial makeups of juries, etc, and how they can stack things against Hailey’s favour. He shmoozin’, sending steaks to the judges, and knowing which bailiff’s mistress is pregrnant, etc, from the get-go. That kind of fella.
The cast is as stacked as an A-Grade 90s flick could be: the moment you’re settling into McConaughey and Jackson, potent as they are together, you get Oliver Platt bringin’ the jokes, then Sandra Bullock as an additional lead (she’s Ellen Roark, a hotshot law school student herself, daughter of a famous entertainment lawyer who volunteers help to Brigance and Hailey).
Then, after Spacey’s antagonist, for a true villain, a surviving member of the racist posse, it’s Keifer Sutherland. Daddy’s here too: Donald Sutherland shows up as a hard-living retired etc etc etc who Brigance reaches out to for advice.
Ashley Judd is Brigance’s homebound wife. And, of course, born with a face for this kind of thing, Chris Cooper has a role as a police officer caught in the middle of everything. The wonderful Beth Grant, John Diehl, and Anthony Heald all show up, making us say: “Oh, it’s them”, as they, you know, compare elements of jurisprudence to the difference between good and bad chicken. Not quite, but close.
Wild Card Who is a Real Rascal that Can’t Tuck a Shirt In But Knows All The Ins and Outs?: Not as such, as when in The Firm we suddenly got a Busey, or how The Rainmaker really comes to life when DeVito and Damon play off of each other. Nor even the way that Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones split the work of scoundrel-you-kind-of-need/love in The Client. But for comic relief, we’ve got Brigand’s fellow lawyer Oliver Platt coming in, sweating, and cracking wise while Brigand handles a football to do his best Law Thinking. It’s that kind of southern story.
How Far Does The Conspiracy Go?: Bout Klan high.
We Got Assassins Chasing Our Hero?: Yes. Not the kind hired by “them” who show up in town and chase you through warehouses (as in Client, Firm, Pelican Brief) but, instead, direct intimidation and attacks on our hero and his family, via the community and its lingering element of violent racists. They come after more than just our hero. It’s massively manipulative stuff, drawing out scenes of these klan types and zooming in on their teeth gnashing, cross burning, and sexual aggression. Yikes.
The Judge: a Real Crank? Oh, the crankiest, pulling our shiny champion Brigance aside, day one, and accusing him of “grandstanding in mah courtroom” just because he motions to transfer to somewhere that will provide a fair trial for his client, and of course, he loves Spacey’s slicker, more experienced, shmoozy prosecutor.
Favourite Moment: At one point, our cranky ole’ judge is approached at his home (porch) by Brigance, and gives a little speech while painting, which brought to mind HMQE II in The Crown, remarking, upon hearing that Eisenhower paints landscapes: “Don’t they all?”
Any Misfires?: It makes for a fascinating study to consider how some similar material here feels purposeful, tough, and in clear moral context whereas in The Chamber it just sort of bludgeons with sourness.
One distinction is that this is a more classically structured picture with its convictions on its sleeves.
Another is that the crime is centred here, we never forget what happened and how much righteous anger it drew up in Hailey.
We are face to face with the question of the ethics and legality of revenge killing. Black life and community are foregrounded here in scenes, rather than just moments of pain and extinguishment.
It’s also just a more credible portrayal of Black and White folks living around each other, interacting, sharing space, torn by the spectre of racism but going about their lives.
Much more could be said, and it’d be fair to look critically at the choices made here as well — some of it’s really over the top — but nobody would argue that it’s not a more effective, impassioned, energized film, and that means that we, as an audience, are clearer of the contract we’re in, and why we’re made to witness and hear some of the things we do.
Oscar Noms?: Nary a one! But past and future nominees/winners abound; I count four.
Summary/ grade: 8 on the Grisham Movies scale. This is one that starts on tv some Saturday when you’re doing laundry, and you stay with it. It’s a really tough watch in moments, and the evil here is heartbreaking and real, not just suits or Government Stuff. So it’s not for everyone.
Finally, for me, on a strictly subjective taste note, it’s the noiriest, with shadows cutting through blinds, sweat all over everything, stark constrasts, wicked wicked villains and moody seething swampy everything. Which I love.
5) The Chamber — 1996 (October), Dir. James Foley
Length: 1 Hour, 53 Minutes
Rated: R for Violent Images and Some Language
What Goes On?: Idealistic young lawyer Adam Hall (Chris O’Donnell) is called away from city life to Mississippi where his grandfather, a man he has sought to distance himself from completely, is about to face the death penalty (Hall is passionately against it, period). Hall must reckon with the brutal racism of his family legacy, and the question of whether he should appeal the execution of even someone so ruthless as his father, Sam Cayhall (Gene Hackman).
Legal Parable or Conspiracy Thriller?: This one is small, close to the bone, and personal.
Heroic Lawyer: Our own Adam Hall, who demonstrates his credentials as a Modern Fellow by seeming uncomfortable at the presence of a Black woman as the so-called help at a family member’s southern shindig, and who is Torn from The Start between being passionately anti-racism and also wanting to represent his grandfather — a killer of Jewish children — against an upcoming execution. He opposes the “state sponsored murder” of any American citizen. Babyfaced and blank, he’s as green as they come, and the only one of our leads who’s age is given in the script: 26.
Is the villain an Evil, Old School Lawyer/Businessman/Politician?: Unique amongst the batch: the strife here is the internal struggle of Mr. Hall. The evil presented is the evil of racist violence, embodied in the intelligent, sarcastic, vile Cayhall character. Hall’s father is presented as eminently personable, persuasive, rugged, angry, and bitter. Hackman, frankly, stuns in the role. It’s old-school acting, the embodiment of someone so extreme that most of us happily live our lives without needing to interrogate the question of how these people exist, operate, and occupy the same world as us. The performance may be the most arresting of all the films, even if it occurs in the weakest film itself.
Wild Card Who is a Real Rascal that Can’t Tuck a Shirt In But Knows All The Ins and Outs?: There isn’t, though we do get the only major Black female character (played — charismatically, by Lela Rochon) as a sidekick/fellow lawyer/foil who is tagged with out lead and adds in the scant momentum the film attempts during its second act.
How Far Does The Conspiracy Go?: No real conspiracy to speak of, but, you could say, all the way to the wicked heart of every human?
There’s some skullduggery that leads our hero to do things no real lawyer would, as per dramatic license, and track down current Klan figures to an unlicensed boxing max where he is summarily beaten and threatened. This yields a kind of alternate villain (I stand by Hackman as the villain, despite the business about whether or not he took the fall for someone else), the local granddaddy of the confederate-flag toting set. It’s tedious, it bathes us in further ugliness, and, again, it’s the unfocused and unmoving nature of it that highlights that, not the fact that such material exists in the film.
We Got Assassins Chasing Our Hero?: Only the assassins of conscience and bad dreams.
The Judge: a Real Crank? There’s one, and sort of, but to say more would risk giving big things away.
Favourite Moment: There’s fine dialogue, local colour, and turns of phrase the remind us, now and then, of Grisham’s authorly skills, but they all rest beneath the gray, dour exterior, or emerge from O’Donnell’s energy-sapping mouth. I genuinely feel bad about how miserably not-correct his casting in this is. The kid, for example, was a fine Robin. Really, he was. This lead figure, and the Foley hones in on it, specifically, on Adam’s blank face, is massively unappealing as a thriller’s protagonist.
Any Misfires?: There’s a case to be made for the idea that few stories warrant scenes focusing in detail on abrasive racist language or featuring characters full of their rhetoric.
There’s another to be made that we must represent such things, unedited, or else we only water them down and leave evil unexposed.
I think the line has to be drawn each time, and the each incident of graphic content of any kind either makes or doesn’t make its own case for justifying itself.
I’m more inclined to look at it from the artistic perspective and say that if you do your work, do it well, and tell a meaningful and powerful narrative: the grit will be perceived the way you intend it to. And if you don’t: every harsh thing will stick out and feel unearned, sour, and suspect.
Roger Ebert wrote, in 1996, the following: There is an unpleasant way in which “The Chamber” and the previous John Grisham thriller, “A Time to Kill,” linger over the racism and hate language of their characters. Yes, the racist characters are the villains. But the ugly things they say linger in the air, there to be admired by anyone on their wavelength.
Any subject, including racism, can be the legitimate material of a movie. But I am not happy when I see deep wounds in our society being opened for the purpose of entertainment. “The Chamber” is not a serious movie about anything, and so when characters are allowed to rant at length about their hatred of African Americans and Jews, repeating the most vile hate clichés, what I get from the screen is not simply dialogue but the broadcasting of dangerous language.
As I happen to agree about the film’s lack of artistic merit, I felt the same.
It is better, I’d wager, to depict morality in the way that it plays out in life, and people do use these terms, demonstrate these behaviours, and espouse these views. But you’ve got to make your case. Here: it’s just empty space beneath all the dress-up.
Oscar Noms?: To quote Hott Fuzz: Narp.
Summary/ grade: Crafsmanship: 6.5, Recommendability/need for anyone to pick it up as an enjoyable watch: 2.5
6) The Rainmaker — 1997, Dir. Frances Ford Coppola
Length: 2 hrs and 15 minutes.
Rated: PG-13 for a Strong Beating and Elements of Domestic Abuse.
What Goes On?: This is it — the best one. It also happens to be the lowest-stakes, most courtroom-bound, and has the most genuine humour. That’s not to say that it isn’t entirely self-righteous, nor that it doesn’t contain harrowing impropriety and maddening misbheaviour. It does, but these aren’t exclusive from warmth, wit, and energy.
Most crucially for me, this picture alone of all of these (A Time to Kill comes close) has the feel of a novel. Others have the scope and sweep (Pelican Brief), but none really takes its time and lays things out, step by step, in such a clear way. Here, we begin with a bright young lawyer, as in so many of these movies, but — well, that’s it! He’s not suddenly wrapped up in the world of high-stakes legal mechanics (ahem, The Firm), or on the run (Pelican Brief and The Client) nor does he become a superhuman figure facing enormous institutional evil (Chamber and Time to Kill). He just needs to get his opening statement right. And so on. The central odd couple is the best of the bunch, and this is one of the loveliest Danny DeVito castings ever, as he plays the tender-hearted, much-experienced, never-licensed advisor to Damon’s young lead.
We’ll get into the rest of it, but I will note, as a film nerd first and someone writing up Grisham flicks for fun, incidentally, that the pedigree here is not whatsoever what sways me. Coppola is the rare figure among New Hollywood 70s/80s titans whose biggest titles I don’t own or feel much about, one way or another. The guy’s fine. Godfather fine. Apocalypse Now, impressive, doesn’t move me. Etc.
Okay — so, in short: our young lawyer needs work or he’ll go broke, and starts up with a ramshackle, sleazy little law firm, whose head hires him and then splits, probably to avoid his own pending charges. He leaves our bright-eyed kiddo with an unofficial, hard-working, seen-it-all assistant (DeVito) who sort of knows every inch of the game without being a qualified lawyer himself (can’t quite pass that exam!). They scour Memphis for personal injury cases to make a dime on, but Rudy’s heart is set on a suit on behalf of a poor woman who’s son is dying of cancer, and whose life-saving procedure their insurance keeps refusing to pay.
Legal Parable or Conspiracy Thriller?: This one’s pretty tightly a legal parable, but it gets its thrills and threat in other ways. One is the romantic subplot, which has nothing to do with the main goings-on, but brings about a villain of sorts. The conspiracy, if there is one, is against Bad Lawyers, the establisherati, who outright break the law to crush our young lead and his case. But we know from the start what’s going on: the case itself is a conspiracy — that Big Insurance denied a sweet Southern family’s claim illegally. And anything discovered or widened from there, is within the scope of that thesis.
Heroic Lawyer: Grisham’s spinning wheel of appealing Southern modern not-too-fancy-but-can-get-a-law-degree names lands here, finally, on Rudy Baylor. The sleazy lawyer he signs up with (who then leaves, needing to be scarce) is Bruiser Stone (A terrific Mickey Rourke). Left to help him is Deck Shifflet (DeVito). And for an enemy: they will face veteran opposing counsel, the slickest of the slick, Southern gentleman and $1,000 per hour hiree of Major Health Insurance Incorporated: Leo F. Drummond (Jon Voight).
Is the villain an Evil, Old School Lawyer/Businessman/Politician?: Yup! That’d be Voight’s Drummond, who spanks Damon’s poor Baylor every chance. In court. Out of court. Emotionally. Legally.
Wild Card Who is a Real Rascal that Can’t Tuck a Shirt In But Knows All The Ins and Outs?: Oh, naturally! Rourke is the most satisfying of these in this role, beginning by just oozing scruples, but paying off later in a super gratifying moment when he is written in again in a genius moment that is both fun and also credible.
How Far Does The Conspiracy Go?: It ain’t too much that kind of picture, you hear?
We Got Assassins Chasing Our Hero?: No, but our romantic subplot involves him spying a comely (but bruised up) woman (Claire Danes) in the hospital with a shouty husband who he decides he can best represent as Lawyer of Her Heart; incurring the ire of said hubby, who pesters rather significantly as the plot requires.
The Judge: a Real Crank? Yes and no. One judge gives Rudy a real earful — and not without reason, though he’s rude. But for most of the proceedings, we’re in the hands of a beautifully-given Danny Glover performance (Danny Glover, astonishingly uncredited, I can’t seem to turn up a reason why, it’s one of the most significant roles in the film). He embodies a judge who, while certainly and pleasingly more on ‘our side’, in terms of his sympathies, is fair, upholding fair objections against Baylor, but also seeing to his fair requests. There’s a truly lovely moment when he quietly instructs Rudy in how to proceed, recognizing it’s the young man’s first rodeo. It’s fully underplayed and just a treat to see the legal detail working here: the core of what we want from a Grisham joint, in the end.
Favourite Moment: Aside from the way that Stone re-appears (I’ll leave it a surprise), there’s a moment I paused the movie to laugh out loud, charmed, which is when, during a deposition, that for certain reasons has to be held in a private citizen’s back yard, Rudy takes up the legal stuff, with judge and opposing counsel present, but Shifflet wanders the perimeter and approaches some kids rubbernecking through a fence.
One is wearing an arm cast.
“Hey kid, you want a stick of gum?” he asks. The kid, and some others, accept, quietly.”
“You break your arm? Had an accident?” he continues, and then gives the kid and his mom his card. Picking up a client, rain, snow, or shine, just like the postal worker of legend.
Any Misfires?: The romance/white knight subplot could be entirely removed and I’d be just fine. There’s plenty here otherwise. But it ain’t bad.
Oscar Noms?: No — I had it in my head that it was a sole nod for Voight, but it’s not; he received a Golden Globes nomination (oh boy do they love Jon Voight at those globes).
Summary / grade: 9.0. Juicy legal yum-yums, stuffed into a white pepper gravy-drenched biscuit, served with a side of iced tea.
