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Maybe the answer is that the movie is interested in the white characters as people and the black characters (apart from Carl Lee Hailey) as atmosphere. One wonders why more screen time wasn't found for black characters like Hailey's wife. Hailey turns them down, in an awkward sequence intended, I think, to equate the NAACP lawyers with figures like the Rev. There are a few scenes involving the NAACP's legal defense people, who persuade the local pastor to hold a fund-raiser for Hailey's legal defense-but insist the money be used for a black lawyer. Another strand involves the plotting of the Klan, led by the vicious Cobb ( Kiefer Sutherland). Emmet Walsh), his secretary ( Brenda Fricker), his wife (Judd), and his unpaid assistant (Bullock). The subplots involve mostly Brigance's white friends and associates: his alcoholic old mentor ( Donald Sutherland), his alcoholic young mentor ( Oliver Platt), his alcoholic expert witness (M. Yet the movie itself has trouble imagining its black characters.
He describes the sadistic acts against Hailey's daughter in almost pornographic detail, then asks the jury, “Now imagine she's white.” That's an odd statement, implying that the white jury wouldn't be offended by the crimes if the victim was black.
Brigance's summation is well-delivered by McConaughey, but his tactics left me feeling uneasy. The movie climaxes with the obligatory courtroom scenes. He discourages her, but she turns up with useful leads, and he needs someone to help him counter the expert local district attorney ( Kevin Spacey). That's well-timed to clear space for another character, the young lawyer Ellen Roark ( Sandra Bullock), a rich Northerner who studied law at Ole Miss and wants to be Brigance's unpaid aide. What would it take, if you were on the jury, to set me free?” As Brigance prepares his case, crosses are burned on lawns, anonymous phone calls are made, and his wife ( Ashley Judd) moves their family to safety. “You see me the way the jury will see me. “You're my secret weapon,” the black man tells his white lawyer.
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(Even the crippled deputy blurts out, under oath, that he would have done the same thing.) But can a black man get a fair trial after murdering two white men, even in the “new” South? The movie milks this question for all it's worth, which isn't much, unless the average audience thinks Hollywood will allow Klan thugs to prevail over the hero. (I will have to discuss certain plot points, so be warned.) Everyone in the county knows Carl Lee Hailey killed the two men who raped his daughter, and many of them share his feelings. Grisham should simply be honest enough to recognize that he does the same things he says Stone shouldn't do.Īs a story, “A Time to Kill” works effectively. Artists cannot hold themselves hostage to the possibility that defectives might misuse their work.
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However, if you leave out everything that might inspire a nut, you don't have a movie left-or a free society, either. But to a twisted mind, their secret meetings and corn-pone rituals might be appealing. One might also ask if Grisham forfeits his right to moral superiority by including a subplot in “A Time to Kill” that gives the Ku Klux Klan prominence and a certain degenerate glamor. But one might reasonably ask whether the creeps would have committed the murder without taking the drugs. Well, Grisham is a lawyer, and lawyers exist to file suits. Stone should be sued by the victim's family, Grisham said, offering the theory that “NBK” was to blame under product-liability laws. Grisham recently attacked director Oliver Stone, alleging that Stone's “ Natural Born Killers” inspired drugged-out creeps to murder a friend of Grisham's. This is the best of the film versions of Grisham novels, I think, and it has been directed with skill by Joel Schumacher.īut as I watched the film, other thoughts intruded. Jackson as Carl Lee Hailey, the avenging father, and Matthew McConaughey as Jake Brigance, the lawyer. I was absorbed by “A Time to Kill,” and found the performances strong and convincing, especially the work by Samuel L.
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