A TIME TO KILL
A film review by Michael John Legeros
Copyright 1996 Michael John Legeros
(WB)
Directed by Joel Schumacher
Written by Akiva Goldsman, based on the novel by John Grisham
Cast Matthew McConaughey, Samuel L. Jackson, Sandra Bullock,
Kevin Spacey, Oliver Platt, Brenda Fricker, Charles S.
Dutton, Ashley Judd, Donald Sutherland, Kiefer
Sutherland, Patrick McGoohan
MPAA Rating "R" (presumably for language and violence)
Running Time 149 minutes
Reviewed at The Imperial, Cary, NC (14JUL96)
==
And it goes something like this: rednecks rape a little girl; her black father (Samuel L. Jackson) guns them down in a courtroom; a young white lawyer (Matthew McConaughey) refuses to budge from the center of a high-profile, small-town trial; a local chapter of the Klan is formed; the NAACP comes to town; crosses are burned; riots erupt; tourism to rural Mississippi plummets to an all-time low; a visiting law student (Sandra Bullock) flirts; an ambitious District Attorney (Kevin Spacey) schemes; a crusty judge (Patrick McGoohan) cautions everyone against grandstanding, which of course they do, while glistening in sheets of sweat as they attempt to work their high-paid tongues around what must be a dozen different variations on the traditional Southern accent. All that's missing is a cameo from Gregory Peck, y'all.
As adapted from the John Grisham best seller, A TIME TO KILL is as shamelessly string-pulling as INDEPENDENCE DAY. There isn't an ounce of depth-of-feeling to the characters, but you can project in all you care to. (Especially during the racial confrontations, which may be the most gratuitous depictions that we've seen since MISSISSIPPI BURNING.) Blame an over-ambitious story. The movie runs for about two-and-a-half hours and it's still too short. Director Joel Schumacher (working from a script by his BATMAN FOREVER and CLIENT collaborator Akiva Goldsman) paints in broad-but-succinct strokes. The plot merrily churns away and most people probably won't notice that they are reacting more to the dramatic devices than to the characters. No problem. A TIME TO KILL is easily the most entertaining of the Grisham films. The plot makes sense, the acting is superb, and there's even a minor message delivered at the very end. Not bad for a summer movie.
Grade: B
--
Mike Legeros - Raleigh, NC
legeros@nando.net (h) - legeros@unx.sas.com (w)
Visit me in MOVIE HELL
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