THE FIRM
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 1993 David N. Butterworth/The Summer Pennsylvanian
"I want the truth!" demands hotshot lawyer Tom Cruise in last year's military drama, A FEW GOOD MEN. And in his new film, THE FIRM, Cruise once again plays a hotshot lawyer who's searching for the truth. Talk about a stretch! Actually, Cruise's character Mitchell McDeere stumbles upon the truth fairly quickly in the film. But unfortunately for him and THE FIRM, dealing with the unsavory aspects of that truth produces more fizzle than sizzle.
Okay. So Tom's this red-hot Harvard Law School grad who, as the film opens, is being courted by all these prestigious law firms. But Cruise's Mitch is astute and won't take any old offer. He wants the best. He's got a mother in a trailer park and an estranged brother in the county lockup so he's got something to prove. And he wants to give his adoring wife Abby (the cozy bathrobe-sporting Jeanne Tripplehorn) more than a mere hand-to-mouth existence. They are young, beautiful people after all. Surely they deserve better than that?
So when the small but prosperous Memphis law firm Bendini, Lambert & Locke make him an offer he can't refuse, well, he can't refuse it.
So. Mitch and Abby U-Haul it down to picture postcard-perfect Tennessee where they're wined and dined by the Firm. Their house is beautiful; it's furnished, carries a low-interest mortgage, and even has a Mercedes in the driveway. But what's most important is that the Firm doesn't forbid its lawyers' wives to work and "encourages children." "How *exactly* do they do that?" questions Abby, with keen-eyed skepticism.
As idyllic as home life should be, the workplace is tough as hell. Nobody's ever failed the bar exam Mitch is told once, twice, one hundred times in a zany montage of mounting legal tomes and dwindling desk space. But before the film gets bogged down in legal pen-pushing... Bang! There's an explosion aboard a yacht in the Grand Caymans where two of the Firm's associates were vacationing. Both killed. "That's four dead lawyers in under ten years," comments a total stranger in a greasy spoon late one night. One of the guys, played by Ed Harris, has a bald head and thick-rimmed glasses and looks like a Fed. "Who are you guys?" asks Mitch, inquiringly, but they've ordered their steak sandwiches *to go*!
Before long, Mitch and his assigned mentor Avery Tolar (Gene Hackman, who's name is inexplicably missing from the film's advertisements) whip down to those treacherous, attorney-claiming islands to bully a client. Because Mitch is a hotshot lawyer, you know it won't be long before he starts getting suspicious. I mean, those boxes of files in Avery's closet with the names of the dead lawyers on them and stuff? Something is definitely up. But Mitch goes overboard on the rum punches one night and partakes of one local delicacy too many, so to speak. Eight-by-ten glossies in a brown manila envelope to follow.
In the nation's capital, Agent Tarrance (Harris) pops up again and we get the low-down on Mitch's employers. (C'mon... All that's missing from the film's title is the word "unscrupulous.") But what the government needs is proof. Incriminating evidence of the documentary kind. What they need is for some hotshot lawyer to make photocopies and stuff so that they can put the whole lousy stinking operation away for a long, long time. Mitch says "No way!" But he sleeps on it and comes up with a scam involving $1.5 million, a Swiss bank account, and the early release of his brother-the-convict. Takes a real hotshot to rip off the Federal Bureau of Investigation!
THE FIRM is never boring (even at almost 2 hours and 40 minutes) but it never really sparkles either. Sure there's some tension, but McDeere's plan to bring the Firm to its knees (which even his *wife* doesn't want to hear about) isn't exactly awe-inspiring. And the denouement, which was changed from novelist John Grisham's original ending, requires a humongous stretch of the imagination.
The acting, much as you would expect from this cast, is uniformly solid. Gary Busey plays private eye Eddie Lomax who buys it with style. Blam! Pow! Holly Hunter plays his gum-chewing secretary Tammy Hemphill who was under the table giving him a "pedicure." David Strathairn sensitively portrays Mitch's incarcerated brother, Ray. Hal Holbrook is the Firm's senior partner Oliver Lambert, and Wilford Brimley its tough head of security who's "paid to be suspicious."
Similarly, Sydney Pollack's direction is competent and workmanlike. The script, adapted from Grisham's bestseller, was pulled together by David Rabe, Robert Towne (who wrote CHINATOWN), and David Rayfiel. But the feeling you get from all their efforts is just one more humdrum movie-going experience.
If the thought of another Tom Cruise hotshot still turns you on, then THE FIRM is definitely for you. But if you're more interested in a slick, engrossing tale of corporate corruption, read the hardcopy version instead.
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