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Directed By
Joel Schumacher
Written By:
Akiva Goldsman
Cast:
Matthew McConaughey, Samuel L. Jackson, Sandra Bullock, Kevin Spacey, Donald Sutherland, Brenda Fricker, Oliver Platt, Charles S. Dutton, Kiefer Sutherland, Chris Cooper, Ashley Judd, Patrick McGoohan, Rae'ven Kelly, John Diehl, M. Emmet Walsh, Anthony Heald, Kurtwood Smith, Tonea Stewart
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A Time To Kill (1996)
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Movie Review by Jarrod
September 8th, 2007
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'A Time to Kill' is a powerful film about racial tensions in the south, and perhaps America more broadly, and it is also a fine legal drama, based on a John Grisham novel. Samuel L Jackson is Carl Lee Hailey, who kills the two repulsive rednecks who brutally rape his daughter, before they go to trial. He ends up in jail, convicted of murder, and relies on a white lawyer named Jake Brigance (McConaughey) to defend him, against the experienced and ruthless DA Rufus Buckley (Spacey) and an unsympathetic judge (Patrick McGoohan), and an inevitably hostile and bigoted jury. Donald Sutherland is Lucien Wilbanks, Jake's mentor, a disgraced drunk, who interestingly sums up the movie's moral message, that if Jake wins, justice will be served, and if he loses, justice will be served.
Carl Lee certainly is guilty of murder, though it was driven by rage and grief, it is, in the eyes of the law, as bad a crime as what was done to his daughter. Would the two dead men have gotten a fitting sentence? Hard to say. One of them has a brother, Freddie Lee Cobb (Keifer Sutherland), who calls on the KKK to come into town and organize a demonstration, and maybe terrorize some black folks and those white fools who have sided with them. Sandra Bullock is Ellen, a hotshot from the north, who works as Jake's assistant and adviser. Oliver Platt is Jake's friend and colleague, a divorce attorney. Brenda Fricker is Jake's secretary, Ethel. Charles Dutton is exquisite as the black sheriff. All of the performances are strong, particularly McConaughey, Jackson, and Bullock. The court proceedings play out in detail, with lots of emotional testimonies and scenes of vicious racism and violence, as carried out by the KKK.
These things are what make the film so effective. It is unsparing and unflinching in its depictions of how whites and blacks relate to one another in a society where they tend to avoid each other, and it also shows corruption and selfishness within the NAACP, which comes to draw publicity to Carl Lee's trial, as much for its sake, as his. Maybe it is overdone and manipulative, McConaughey's final speech really pounds you over the head, and while I doubt that 'A Time to Kill' accurately reflects legalistic procedure, it looks and feels convincing enough, and I am sure that in most southern courts, even today, a black person would have a hard time getting a fair verdict, compared to his white comrades. I hope I am wrong, but I may not be.
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