THE CHAMBER
[Spoilers]
A film review by Chuck Dowling
Copyright 1997 Chuck Dowling
The Chamber (1996) ** out of ***** - Cast: Chris O'Donnell, Gene Hackman, Faye Dunaway, Raymond Berry, Lela Rochon, Bo Jackson. Written by: William Goldman and Chris Reese. Directed by: James Foley. Running Time: 110 minutes.
*** This review does contain spoilers. ***
There are two characters that for the life of me I cannot figure out Hollywood's fascination with: the President of the United States and convicted murderers. "The Chamber" makes the FOURTH film in less than two years about someone trying to save a GUILTY person from the death penalty.
Chris O'Donnell stars as Adam Hall, a fresh young lawyer who travels to Mississippi to appeal the case of Sam Cahall (Gene Hackman), a convicted murderer whose racist beliefs cause him to blow up a building containing a Jewish lawyer and his two young children. We find out early that Hall is actually Sam's grandson, which is why he has requested the case. He doesn't seem to care for his grandfather, and it certainly seems like he hates racism, but I guess he hates the death penalty even more. He must save his mean old granddad from that mean old gas chamber.
Now knowing that this was the fourth movie in the last few months to do the exact same story, stupid me, I figured that this was a mystery and was trying to figure out who really planted that bomb so that mean old racist Hackman can get out of jail. As I said, stupid me. Hackman is guilty. And none of the characters make any sense. Hackman (who does give a good performance, even with an illogical character) is mean, racist, cold-hearted, yet forgiving, sympathetic, and kind. How is that possible? And I already explained O'Donnell's paradox, I see no reason why he is trying to save this man's life.
Another main problem is that Hackman's (and other's) racist speeches go completely unanswered. While he's spouting his racist views we might see a shot of someone rolling their eyes or whatever, but no one speaks up to put Hackman in his place. It's as if the filmmakers think that all of society has matured so much that everyone will also just roll their eyes and realize, "Hey, racism is stupid". This can be dangerous. A great many people who feel the way characters do in this film are still out there, and these unanswered comments can make strong impressions on those weak-minded people.
I didn't get to see "The Chamber" in the theaters, it was gone too quickly. That surprised me. John Grisham movies have always been blockbusters. After seeing it however, I understand why. Attention Hollywood: the movie-going public has no desire to see movies about people trying to save the lives of convicted murderers! It just doesn't interest them. Go figure. [R]
--Chuck Dowling
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