Rating: 
Summary: Racism, violence, white trash, murder ("Jerry! Jerry!")
Review: "A Time to Kill" has good intentions. It stars:Matthew McConaughey as lawyer Jake Brigance Samuel L. Jackson as Carl Lee Hailey, a father who kills to avenge the rape of his little girl Kevin Spacey as the snide, sinister District Attorney Sandra Bullock as Brigance's law clerk, Ellen "Rork in Boston, but Row Ark in Mississippi" Ashley Judd as Jake Brigance's wife Oliver Platt is Jake's buddy Harry Rex Keifer Sutherland as a vengeful redneck and Donald Sutherland as eccentric, civil-rights-activist/disbarred lawyer/drunk/mentor Lucien Wilbanks With an all star cast like that, you can't go wrong, and the film, at least plot-wise, doesn't. Carl Lee Hailey's 10-year-old daughter is raped and left for dead by two white trash redneck dopeheads. Enraged, Hailey takes justice into his own hands and fatally shoots the two rapists as they leave the courthouse. Everyone in the small Mississippi town hears the news within minutes and takes sides, and Hailey hires a young ham-and-egger, Brigance, to defend him. As Brigance tries to avoid a conviction from the all-white jury, the brother of one of the rapists (played by Keifer Sutherland) gets together a couple of good ole boys to form a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. Violence erupts, protesters march and chant, death threats and burning crosses abound, everyone is covered at all times with a sheen of oily sweat, and there's even an explosion. "A Time to Kill" is like the "Jerry Springer Show," but intelligent. The dialogue, however, could use work. It seems as if a good writer and a mediocre writer banged out the script, then cut it up and shuffled it together, intermingling the really well-written scenes with some really choppy dialogue. The same goes for the acting. Jackson, Spacey, and McConaughey are excellent and convincing in their roles. Platt is charming as Jake's best friend and a sleazy divorce lawyer. However, Judd is useless and even childish in her role as a trophy wife, and Bullock, as Jake's law clerk, sounds as if she's a shy girl in a high-school play who hasn't quite memorized her lines yet. (This really irked me because in the book version, her character was headstrong, outspoken, and very smart.) I encourage anyone to rent the movie for themselves. It's definitely worth seeing, even if the writing and acting is a little off in places. The story redeems the bad acting.
Rating:
Summary: Racism, violence, white trash, murder ("Jerry! Jerry!")
Review: "A Time to Kill" has good intentions. It stars: Matthew McConaughey as lawyer Jake Brigance Samuel L. Jackson as Carl Lee Hailey, a father who kills to avenge the rape of his little girl Kevin Spacey as the snide, sinister District Attorney Sandra Bullock as Brigance's law clerk, Ellen "Rork in Boston, but Row Ark in Mississippi" Ashley Judd as Jake Brigance's wife Oliver Platt is Jake's buddy Harry Rex Keifer Sutherland as a vengeful redneck and Donald Sutherland as eccentric, civil-rights-activist/disbarred lawyer/drunk/mentor Lucien Wilbanks With an all star cast like that, you can't go wrong, and the film, at least plot-wise, doesn't. Carl Lee Hailey's 10-year-old daughter is raped and left for dead by two white trash redneck dopeheads. Enraged, Hailey takes justice into his own hands and fatally shoots the two rapists as they leave the courthouse. Everyone in the small Mississippi town hears the news within minutes and takes sides, and Hailey hires a young ham-and-egger, Brigance, to defend him. As Brigance tries to avoid a conviction from the all-white jury, the brother of one of the rapists (played by Keifer Sutherland) gets together a couple of good ole boys to form a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. Violence erupts, protesters march and chant, death threats and burning crosses abound, everyone is covered at all times with a sheen of oily sweat, and there's even an explosion. "A Time to Kill" is like the "Jerry Springer Show," but intelligent. The dialogue, however, could use work. It seems as if a good writer and a mediocre writer banged out the script, then cut it up and shuffled it together, intermingling the really well-written scenes with some really choppy dialogue. The same goes for the acting. Jackson, Spacey, and McConaughey are excellent and convincing in their roles. Platt is charming as Jake's best friend and a sleazy divorce lawyer. However, Judd is useless and even childish in her role as a trophy wife, and Bullock, as Jake's law clerk, sounds as if she's a shy girl in a high-school play who hasn't quite memorized her lines yet. (This really irked me because in the book version, her character was headstrong, outspoken, and very smart.) I encourage anyone to rent the movie for themselves. It's definitely worth seeing, even if the writing and acting is a little off in places. The story redeems the bad acting.
Rating: 
Summary: An Emotional Rollercoaster
Review: A Time to Kill is an emotional rollercoaster taking us on a journey from utter contempt to grief and back again in just 143 mind blowing minutes.
Rating: 
Summary: Grisham At His Best
Review: A Time to Kill is my favorite Grisham book, and the movie follows suit. The book, which was the first one published but did not become popular until The Firm becase a success, seems to be the most "grounded" with a "real" feel to it unlike some of the other ones which tend to stretch credibility a bit more (but are fun to read anyway.)
Rating:
Summary: Grisham At His Best
Review: A Time to Kill is my favorite Grisham book, and the movie follows suit. The book, which was the first one published but did not become popular until The Firm becase a success, seems to be the most "grounded" with a "real" feel to it unlike some of the other ones which tend to stretch credibility a bit more (but are fun to read anyway.)
Rating:
Summary: Grisham At His Best
Review: A Time to Kill is my favorite Grisham book, and the movie follows suit. The book, which was the first one published but did not become popular until The Firm becase a success, seems to be the most "grounded" with a "real" feel to it unlike some of the other ones which tend to stretch credibility a bit more (but are fun to read anyway.)
Rating:
Summary: I loved this movie
Review: A Time To Kill was one of the best movies I have ever watched. I was moved by Matthew McConaughey's performance as a tough advocate, yet caring young man. I would recommend this movie to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: Closing Arguments
Review: A Time To Kill, is one of only two of John Grisham's legal thrillers that I have read, cover to cover. The other is The Chamber. I have to say, that while the book of ATTK is a bit better, then the film version, there's no denying the movie has a lot going for it...making for a very good film. In a small southern town, black man Carl Lee Hailey (Samuel L. Jackson) awaits trial for murdering the two rednecks who viciously raped his 10-year-old daughter. Jake Brigance (Matthew McConaughey) is a young, idealistic white lawyer, who decides to take on the father's defense. The incendiary case becomes a firestorm of racism and controversy, ripping the town apart. This, as Jake goes up against the community's most successful D.A. (Kevin Spacey), while reluctanly accepting help with the case from a law student (Sandra Bullock). It's amazing how good this film is, especially when one considers what director Joel Schumacher and its adapter
Akiva Goldsman, would team up to do on Batman And Robin. At it's center, McConaughey gives his best perfomance to date. He captures the the escence of his novel counterpart to a tee. Jackson is also quite convincing as a man on trial. The rest of the all star cast is very good here--although Bullock shares nice moments with McConaughey--she seems out of step and is suprisingly the film's weakest link. Some have said the movie is over crowded with too many subplots, while that is true to a certain extent I guess, Goldsman's script and Schumacher somehow balance it all. The film takes a few liberties, but, basically stays true to the source material. Like most John Grisham books turned movies, the DVD lacks anything substantial, in the way of bonus material. Production notes and the film's theatrical trailer is all you get...Special Edition anyone? A Time To Kill offers fine performances and rock solid drama. The film is a winner and one of the best Grisham adaptations out there
Rating: 
Summary: Two wrongs apparently make a right
Review: Am I missing something? Please write and tell me if I am, because I can't understand why people admire this movie. As far as I can tell, this is what happens in "A Time To Kill": Carl Lee's daughter is raped and left for dead, and her white tormentors are captured. Before they face trial, Carl kills them. Why? He didn't believe they would be convicted, because a white jury couldn't possibly set aside its racism. Carl is then acquitted by a white jury which sets aside its racism. The film urges us to celebrate this verdict as some kind of race-relations watershed. But beneath the back-slapping, soaring music and soft focus, the take home message is this: "There is a time to kill. If you think the justice system won't give you justice, then revenge killing is a noble option." Not only is this one of most appallingly idiotic dictums ever conceived, it betrays an appreciation of the justice system which is, at best, infantile. Let's apply a little common sense here. What the white rapists did was wrong, and they should be punished for it. What the black father did was wrong, and he should be punished for it, too. Cases closed. Yes, we can empathize with Carl. Yes, put in the same position we might even do the same thing ourselves. No, that doesn't make it right. Even if you think Carl was rightly acquitted, the film defeats its own argument: the fact that Jake Brigance gets a white jury to recognise and set aside its inherent racism ("now imagine she's white") demonstrates that Carl's fears were unjustified. There was no need to take the law into his own hands after all - a black man can get 'justice' from a white court. However, I think a more realistic interpretation of the outcome is that a dumb jury can be sweet-talked by a pretty-boy lawyer into acquitting a guilty man they feel sorry for. And what kind of 'justice' is that? Don't ask screenwriter Akiva Goldsman - this is just another one of his sci-fi scripts. Nor director Joel Schumacher - here, as in his equally insulting "Batman" films, he seems more interested in visually molesting his male star than in telling a decent story. This film was pitched as an exciting suspense-thriller, nicely cast with a mix of heavy-weights and newcomers, and having the guts to explore some serious social and moral issues. For me, it's a vile and contemptible little film peddling an equally repulsive morality. What the hell Spacey, Bullock and the Sutherlands are doing here is beyond me. It's a blot on all their resumés. Go back to your old job as a window dresser, Joel. On the evidence of this film, pretty and pretentious facades are what you're best at.
Rating:
Summary: A worthy subject brought down by a shameless script
Review: An enraged father takes the law into his own hands when two thugs brutalize his daughter. Quickly arrested, the two thugs and their guard are cut down by the raging patriarch. A clear case of parental rage you might say, but this is Hollywood - the father is black, the thugs are drunken rednecks with beer bellies and accents to match, and the resulting murder occurs in the sort of small, backwater southern town visited in countless episodes of "Quantum Leap" - so the real issue must be race. Now imprisoned, dad Carl Lee (Samuel L. Jackson) turns to a young white lawyer, Jake Tyler Brigance (Matt Mccaugnahey) for help. (Brigance is familiar in the town's black community, but Lee prime motivation is his utter whiteness - "you're one of them" the all-but condemned father declares near the end of the film). With his small firm, Brigance prepares what should be a winning defense (the act itself is pretty much indisputable, but legal insanity at a time under Lee's stress of learning of his daughter's victimization is inexplicably depicted as an impossible goal). On his side, Brigance has Lucien Wilbanks (Donald Sutherland), a once prominent liberal lawyer now disbarred but still sage; Harry Rex Vonner (Oliver Platt) as Brigance's associate, who is meant to be acceptably oily as well as playing the devil's advocate role played by Kevin Pollack in the far superior "A Few Good Men"; rounding out the team is Ellen Roark, (Sandra Bullock) a rich law student who descends out of town offering Brigance free legal advice and boundless reserve, money and temptation. Against him is an utterly sleezy prosecutor (Kevin Spacey), a jury that has already decided the case, a resurgent cadre of KKK and a judge who isn't so much prejudicial as he is ominous because he's played by Patrick Mcgoohan and has the last name "Noose". (I guess "Judge Syringe" would have been too obvious). This movie is utterly shameless. Some might just call it PC, but "A Time" is bad because it is compulsively superior, taking not racial injustice as its impetus, but instead relying on pure self-righteousness. Brigance and Lee stand alone among self-serving opportunists, and not all of whom are on the prosecution's side (witness a band of aging civil-rights activists descending on the town with the hope of rekindling their cause with Lee's almost certain martyrdom). The script takes no chances at objectivity with Brigance's actual enemies. Spacey's prosecutor is utterly amoral - his strategy rests largely on a choice of trial venue guaranteed to create a jury whiter than soap, while using a technicality to discredit one of Brigance's witnesses; outside of court, Spacey's other big scene has him tossing out suggestive come-ons to Sandra Bullock (just so she can put him down, and good). Kiefer Southerland is utterly one-dimensional as the brother of one of Lee's victims, who brings the Klan back to their small town. Everything about the film is contrived, especially the issue of race. Are wupposed to think that Lee would have acted differently were he and his daughter's attackers of the same color? It's a nonsensical prospect, but the script cravenly brings the KKK into the picture so that they and not the film's heroes can make the critical decision - if a bunch of torch-carrying redneck rubes in sheets thinks that this is a racial matter, who are we to dispute, right? Certainly, no white scriptwriters would have the bravery to set a polemic on racial injustice in Boston or south-central LA. What's worse is how a script that laments the suffering of the innocent actually discards characters like beer cans - Lee's daughter is practically a non-presence, Brigance's legal allies remain limited to discrete legal roles, even the poor court officer who gets cut down by accident during Lee's strike of vengeance - none rise from the background once the script has used them once. It's no surprise that this shallow film comes with a shallow end - with their town in ashes, after the deaths and the protests, and Lee's daughter (now invisible to the script) essentially scarred for life - the heroes gather at what looks to be a cookout. Films like "Independence Day" are escapist fun - this flick crossed the line into sci-fi.
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