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Review: A Time to Kill (1996)
When I started this movie, the premise seemed really familiar. Only when I was about an hour in did I realize that I'd actually seen this movie before (back in 2014) lol. I'd never written a review for it though, so I might as well now.
Spoilers.
Story
The legal aspect of this drama was very fun, as expected from John Grisham. The way that new challenges came up in the case and the way that the prosecution and the defense dealt with them were indeed very interesting.
However, I'm not sure if it's because time has passed or if it's because I've seen a lot of movies since I first watched this in 2014, but a lot of the out-of-court parts were just uninteresting to me. There were some personal relationships in the movie that just felt so uninteresting to me, such as Brigance's almost affair with Roark, or the relationship with his mentor Lucien. They were supposed to flesh out Brigance, but come to think of it, I can't really say that they added much to him that made me care about him.
There were parts of the dialogue that I felt kind of missed the mark though. When Brigance told Carl Lee Hailey that they made a good team, Carl Lee rejected the idea. Afterwards, Brigance said the same thing to Roark; what is that supposed to signify? I'm not really sure. Stuff like that. And the writing was supposed to build Brigance up to be this complex guy who was taking on this case for complex reasons but the movie went a bit overboard on explaining. We get it, he was guilty about not stopping Carl Lee, but he also sympathized heavily with Carl Lee's anger. I don't think we needed the whole movie to tell us this in words over and over again.
The almost-affair with Roark was weird as hell. Brigance didn't work with Carla, so the story needed to introduce a love interest that could be present while Brigance was working on the case and the fact that it was okayed just felt so weird to me. Not to mention Brigance's married secretary who apparently had a crush on Lucien? Extremely strange.
The parts about the writing that I did appreciate came back to the legal aspects. I thought it was interesting how Brigance's team was made up of lawyers with different beliefs, but it's because of that that they could gather different angles on the case.
So overall, the case writing was interesting, the character writing was average.
Production
The cast for this movie was absolutely stacked. The only reason I wasn't blown away was because I wasn't very impressed with the dialogue. As I mentioned, I thought some of it was kind of generic.
Characters
Jake Brigance
He was our main character, a lawyer who was maybe sort of struggling. He was presented as a guy who was casual and cool, but ultimately was one of the "good ones" because he wasn't racist.
At first, Carla (his wife) thought that Brigance was in it for the fame, seeing as how he seemed to enjoy going on camera. And she got angry with him because he was putting their family in danger by taking on this case. Rather convenient that by the end of the movie, Carla "understood" why Brigance needed to take this case and came back. Like a good Christian man, Brigance didn't commit adultery and reunited with his wife...out of no power of his own.
The whole flirtationship with Roark was so unnecessary too. Not because it I knew it wasn't going to go anywhere. Flirtationship can be interesting even if it doesn't go anywhere. But this flirtationship wasn't even fun. They both clearly bond over their interest in the law, so why can't they be friends that way instead of introducing surprise intimacy in random scenes? Roark was doing most of the work though, and Brigance was just playing his "I am attracted to you but I am also married so I am being such a good man by resisting" role.
He was definitely more interesting when in the courtroom or engaged in any sort of debate. He was good at improvising and he was charismatic. I thought it was interesting when he was discussing his thoughts on the death penalty with Roark, but that conversation ended quickly when Roark got upset. I thought it was interesting because it was an opinion that I felt would have finally given us a look into his beliefs.
I liked that Carl Lee was constantly challenging Brigance's relationship with him. Brigance insisted that they were friends, but as a black man, Carl Lee could of course never believe that. They weren't even in the same social class. Carl Lee was struggling at the mill and Brigance had a college education. Carl Lee only ever saw them as lawyer and client, and he said that he hired Brigance because he felt that Brigance would have been able to think like the jurors. And Brigance did internalize all that Carl Lee said. He realized that the jurors might still not be able to see past the colour barrier, so he dropped his act of being "colour-blind" and tried to win the jurors in another way.
The movie ended with Brigance actually trying to bridge the gap with the black community. Carl Lee had said that their kids weren't ever going to play together, and so Brigance started with that, bridging the gap on a personal level.
Anyway, Brigance was an interesting lawyer, but I wasn't interested in him as a character.
Carl Lee Hailey
Carl Lee was our defendant. He found that his daughter had been raped and assaulted by two rednecks, and he'd murdered the two in rage. Before he'd done the deed, Carl Lee had told Brigance that he might have, but Brigance didn't tell Sheriff Walls. And Carl Lee knew that Brigance didn't think he was actually going to act on his anger too, which was maybe why he told him.
Anyway, Carl Lee asked Brigance to be his lawyer. Brigance had defended his brother before, so Carl Lee felt that he could trust him to defend him sincerely.
The reverend at Carl Lee's church had been convinced by the NAACP to help them replace Brigance. Basically, the reverend was paid to raise money at the church, and all of the money would be put towards Carl Lee's new legal defense team of big shot lawyers. However, Carl Lee had rather that money be put towards his family's survival, and instead he went with Brigance who charged a lower fee.
Throughout the movie, it did feel like Carl Lee kept Brigance at a professional distance, particularly at the end when he outlined why they could never be friends, not in the sense that Brigance thought they were. And those were the words that empowered Brigance to work his magic.
Carl Lee was found innocent, and at the end of the movie, he had a picnic party, which Brigance and his family arrived to, in hopes that he could earn Carl Lee's trust as a friend this time.
Ellen Roark
Roark...I wanted to like her but the moment she started talking I rolled my eyes. It was cool that she was super interested in the case and really wanted to help Brigance. She also highlighted the fact that she came from a famous and rich family of legal experts, and that she herself was a genius which was kind of pushing it.
I think that Sandra Bullock did a good job, but she also did feel a bit too old for this role. Her enthusiasm and rashness would have fit someone in their early twenties. That's just me being picky though. Like I said, Sandra Bullock did do a good job.
But Roark was also portrayed as sexual and flirtatious when the situation didn't need it. I'm not saying that Roark can't be herself without being sexualized. But the writing also introduced so much sexuality into what could have been a perfectly normal professional relationship. What was the point of them almost having an affair? NONE. Brigance getting cut on the back of his upper thigh and Roark needing him to take off his pants to help him tend to the wound? Unnecessary.
Anyway, Roark, I see why your character was cool, but you were poorly executed.
Harry Rex Vonner
Vonner was a divorce lawyer who was supposedly very morally questionable. He joined Brigance's team after being "inspired" I guess. Despite him being portrayed as an all around scumbag, we barely got to see it on screen. All of it was told rather than shown.
Lucien Wilbanks
Lucien was Brigance's mentor character, another character that felt kind of unnecessary in terms of what his personal relationship with Brigance brought to the story. The thing with him was that he purposely got disbarred because he held disdain for the legal system, and he vowed never to step into a courtroom again, until Brigance's speech at the end to the jury.
I guess his arc was about him regaining trust in the justice system (by way of Brigance's performance in court), but it...felt unnecessary to me.
Rufus Buckley
Buckley was the big bad prosecutor of the movie, but like many other big bad prosecutors in legal thrillers, he only played dirty as far as the court case needed. In fact, I don't think he was particularly dirty, he approached the case the exact same way that Brigance did.
And at the end of the movie, we saw that he congratulated Brigance and went on his way. After all, to him, this was just a case.
Themes
Legal system
In Lucien and Brigance's first conversation in the movie, Lucien said that it was ironic that if Carl Lee was found innocent, then justice would prevail, as he was doing what many other people would have considered just (punishing the criminals who might have gone free). On the other hand, if he was found guilty, justice still would have prevailed as he was technically guilty of murder by legal definition.
So the court case was not at all about whether Carl Lee was a murderer. It was about whether he should have been punished for what he did. The prosecution went for the legal definition of murder. Yes, Carl Lee committed murder of two people and assault of another, so he should go to jail. Brigance went for the emotional approach: if everybody would have done the same thing that Carl Lee did, is that unjustice?
What is justice? Some people believe that justice should be aligned with the moral beliefs of the general population. So if everybody believes that what Carl Lee did was reasonable (and they would have done it too), then it would technically be just to let him off on that theory, right?
There was also that brief discussion between Brigance and Roark about the death penalty. Roark was staunchly against the death penalty because she'd seen prisoners on death row be executed, and she felt that no one should have to go through that.
On the other hand, Brigance did not feel that the courts had the responsibility or ability to rehabilitate criminals. He did not think that criminals should be kept alive so that they could be taught to not do the same thing again. Instead, he probably felt that the threat of the death penalty would have been a better deterrent of crime.
There is no clear cut answer to any of these questions, and Grisham knew this as a lawyer.
Racism
This was the other major theme in the movie. This was a little more straightforward in the sense that racial relations were Not Good in this part of Mississippi. The black and white communities were very much segregated and barely interacted.
Even for a man like Brigance who considered himself worldly, it wasn't until he conversed with Carl Lee that he understood that they did not see him as a friend, he was still suspicious to them. It was just that he was friendlier compared to the outright racists.
Overall
I haven't read John Grisham books in a while either, and now I understand why people say that he's a poor writer. This was a good legal thriller, but the personal aspects of the story were definitely dated and not interesting or even particularly good.
Spoilers.
Story
The legal aspect of this drama was very fun, as expected from John Grisham. The way that new challenges came up in the case and the way that the prosecution and the defense dealt with them were indeed very interesting.
However, I'm not sure if it's because time has passed or if it's because I've seen a lot of movies since I first watched this in 2014, but a lot of the out-of-court parts were just uninteresting to me. There were some personal relationships in the movie that just felt so uninteresting to me, such as Brigance's almost affair with Roark, or the relationship with his mentor Lucien. They were supposed to flesh out Brigance, but come to think of it, I can't really say that they added much to him that made me care about him.
There were parts of the dialogue that I felt kind of missed the mark though. When Brigance told Carl Lee Hailey that they made a good team, Carl Lee rejected the idea. Afterwards, Brigance said the same thing to Roark; what is that supposed to signify? I'm not really sure. Stuff like that. And the writing was supposed to build Brigance up to be this complex guy who was taking on this case for complex reasons but the movie went a bit overboard on explaining. We get it, he was guilty about not stopping Carl Lee, but he also sympathized heavily with Carl Lee's anger. I don't think we needed the whole movie to tell us this in words over and over again.
The almost-affair with Roark was weird as hell. Brigance didn't work with Carla, so the story needed to introduce a love interest that could be present while Brigance was working on the case and the fact that it was okayed just felt so weird to me. Not to mention Brigance's married secretary who apparently had a crush on Lucien? Extremely strange.
The parts about the writing that I did appreciate came back to the legal aspects. I thought it was interesting how Brigance's team was made up of lawyers with different beliefs, but it's because of that that they could gather different angles on the case.
So overall, the case writing was interesting, the character writing was average.
Production
The cast for this movie was absolutely stacked. The only reason I wasn't blown away was because I wasn't very impressed with the dialogue. As I mentioned, I thought some of it was kind of generic.
Characters
Jake Brigance
He was our main character, a lawyer who was maybe sort of struggling. He was presented as a guy who was casual and cool, but ultimately was one of the "good ones" because he wasn't racist.
At first, Carla (his wife) thought that Brigance was in it for the fame, seeing as how he seemed to enjoy going on camera. And she got angry with him because he was putting their family in danger by taking on this case. Rather convenient that by the end of the movie, Carla "understood" why Brigance needed to take this case and came back. Like a good Christian man, Brigance didn't commit adultery and reunited with his wife...out of no power of his own.
The whole flirtationship with Roark was so unnecessary too. Not because it I knew it wasn't going to go anywhere. Flirtationship can be interesting even if it doesn't go anywhere. But this flirtationship wasn't even fun. They both clearly bond over their interest in the law, so why can't they be friends that way instead of introducing surprise intimacy in random scenes? Roark was doing most of the work though, and Brigance was just playing his "I am attracted to you but I am also married so I am being such a good man by resisting" role.
He was definitely more interesting when in the courtroom or engaged in any sort of debate. He was good at improvising and he was charismatic. I thought it was interesting when he was discussing his thoughts on the death penalty with Roark, but that conversation ended quickly when Roark got upset. I thought it was interesting because it was an opinion that I felt would have finally given us a look into his beliefs.
I liked that Carl Lee was constantly challenging Brigance's relationship with him. Brigance insisted that they were friends, but as a black man, Carl Lee could of course never believe that. They weren't even in the same social class. Carl Lee was struggling at the mill and Brigance had a college education. Carl Lee only ever saw them as lawyer and client, and he said that he hired Brigance because he felt that Brigance would have been able to think like the jurors. And Brigance did internalize all that Carl Lee said. He realized that the jurors might still not be able to see past the colour barrier, so he dropped his act of being "colour-blind" and tried to win the jurors in another way.
The movie ended with Brigance actually trying to bridge the gap with the black community. Carl Lee had said that their kids weren't ever going to play together, and so Brigance started with that, bridging the gap on a personal level.
Anyway, Brigance was an interesting lawyer, but I wasn't interested in him as a character.
Carl Lee Hailey
Carl Lee was our defendant. He found that his daughter had been raped and assaulted by two rednecks, and he'd murdered the two in rage. Before he'd done the deed, Carl Lee had told Brigance that he might have, but Brigance didn't tell Sheriff Walls. And Carl Lee knew that Brigance didn't think he was actually going to act on his anger too, which was maybe why he told him.
Anyway, Carl Lee asked Brigance to be his lawyer. Brigance had defended his brother before, so Carl Lee felt that he could trust him to defend him sincerely.
The reverend at Carl Lee's church had been convinced by the NAACP to help them replace Brigance. Basically, the reverend was paid to raise money at the church, and all of the money would be put towards Carl Lee's new legal defense team of big shot lawyers. However, Carl Lee had rather that money be put towards his family's survival, and instead he went with Brigance who charged a lower fee.
Throughout the movie, it did feel like Carl Lee kept Brigance at a professional distance, particularly at the end when he outlined why they could never be friends, not in the sense that Brigance thought they were. And those were the words that empowered Brigance to work his magic.
Carl Lee was found innocent, and at the end of the movie, he had a picnic party, which Brigance and his family arrived to, in hopes that he could earn Carl Lee's trust as a friend this time.
Ellen Roark
Roark...I wanted to like her but the moment she started talking I rolled my eyes. It was cool that she was super interested in the case and really wanted to help Brigance. She also highlighted the fact that she came from a famous and rich family of legal experts, and that she herself was a genius which was kind of pushing it.
I think that Sandra Bullock did a good job, but she also did feel a bit too old for this role. Her enthusiasm and rashness would have fit someone in their early twenties. That's just me being picky though. Like I said, Sandra Bullock did do a good job.
But Roark was also portrayed as sexual and flirtatious when the situation didn't need it. I'm not saying that Roark can't be herself without being sexualized. But the writing also introduced so much sexuality into what could have been a perfectly normal professional relationship. What was the point of them almost having an affair? NONE. Brigance getting cut on the back of his upper thigh and Roark needing him to take off his pants to help him tend to the wound? Unnecessary.
Anyway, Roark, I see why your character was cool, but you were poorly executed.
Harry Rex Vonner
Vonner was a divorce lawyer who was supposedly very morally questionable. He joined Brigance's team after being "inspired" I guess. Despite him being portrayed as an all around scumbag, we barely got to see it on screen. All of it was told rather than shown.
Lucien Wilbanks
Lucien was Brigance's mentor character, another character that felt kind of unnecessary in terms of what his personal relationship with Brigance brought to the story. The thing with him was that he purposely got disbarred because he held disdain for the legal system, and he vowed never to step into a courtroom again, until Brigance's speech at the end to the jury.
I guess his arc was about him regaining trust in the justice system (by way of Brigance's performance in court), but it...felt unnecessary to me.
Rufus Buckley
Buckley was the big bad prosecutor of the movie, but like many other big bad prosecutors in legal thrillers, he only played dirty as far as the court case needed. In fact, I don't think he was particularly dirty, he approached the case the exact same way that Brigance did.
And at the end of the movie, we saw that he congratulated Brigance and went on his way. After all, to him, this was just a case.
Themes
Legal system
In Lucien and Brigance's first conversation in the movie, Lucien said that it was ironic that if Carl Lee was found innocent, then justice would prevail, as he was doing what many other people would have considered just (punishing the criminals who might have gone free). On the other hand, if he was found guilty, justice still would have prevailed as he was technically guilty of murder by legal definition.
So the court case was not at all about whether Carl Lee was a murderer. It was about whether he should have been punished for what he did. The prosecution went for the legal definition of murder. Yes, Carl Lee committed murder of two people and assault of another, so he should go to jail. Brigance went for the emotional approach: if everybody would have done the same thing that Carl Lee did, is that unjustice?
What is justice? Some people believe that justice should be aligned with the moral beliefs of the general population. So if everybody believes that what Carl Lee did was reasonable (and they would have done it too), then it would technically be just to let him off on that theory, right?
There was also that brief discussion between Brigance and Roark about the death penalty. Roark was staunchly against the death penalty because she'd seen prisoners on death row be executed, and she felt that no one should have to go through that.
On the other hand, Brigance did not feel that the courts had the responsibility or ability to rehabilitate criminals. He did not think that criminals should be kept alive so that they could be taught to not do the same thing again. Instead, he probably felt that the threat of the death penalty would have been a better deterrent of crime.
There is no clear cut answer to any of these questions, and Grisham knew this as a lawyer.
Racism
This was the other major theme in the movie. This was a little more straightforward in the sense that racial relations were Not Good in this part of Mississippi. The black and white communities were very much segregated and barely interacted.
Even for a man like Brigance who considered himself worldly, it wasn't until he conversed with Carl Lee that he understood that they did not see him as a friend, he was still suspicious to them. It was just that he was friendlier compared to the outright racists.
Overall
I haven't read John Grisham books in a while either, and now I understand why people say that he's a poor writer. This was a good legal thriller, but the personal aspects of the story were definitely dated and not interesting or even particularly good.