Movie Review: A Time to Kill (1996)

Title: A Time to Kill
Year: 1996
Duration: 149 min.
Country: United States
Directed by: Joel Schumacher
With: Matthew McConaughey, Sandra Bullock, Samuel L. Jackson, Kevin Spacey, Oliver Platt.

Source: filmaffinity.com/us/filmimages.php?movie_id=120623

Before we start, a couple of confessions: I like courtroom dramas, so much so that I've watched Law & Order and enjoyed it, and my favorite movies include, for example, My Cousin Vinny (1992), 12 Angry Men (1957), The Rainmaker (1997), Philadelphia (1993) and the one that concerns us today. That's right folks, not everything in life is zombies and superheroes.

And if one likes court dramas, it is impossible not to have seen at least one that is based on a novel by John Grisham. One thing that fascinates me about John Grisham's novels is the fact that the author has managed to make the most of a subject as potentially dull as the legal profession for decades. The guy is the Stephen King of the courts: every six months he writes you a novel about a prosecutor who does this, a public defender who does that, or a juror who does this. He has already published 42 novels and yes, as you can predict it, he is a lawyer.

A Time to Kill (1996) is the fourth film to have been based on a Grisham novel. Its predecessors were The Firm (1993), The Pelican Brief (1993) and The Client (1994). Like these, A Time to Kill features a cast of leading figures: Matthew McConaughey as the lead lawyer, Kevin Spacey as his eventual adversary, and Samuel L. Jackson as the man whose life is at stake depending on what the jury decides.

It is a more controversial film than usual, since it mixes the racial issue with that of justice into one's own hands. Ugh, complicated. Note that this review does not have the usual tone, or at least not the same one that one would apply to a movie like Legally Blonde (1996) or a TV series like Boston Legal. You'll see why when I tell you what it's about.

We are in Clanton, a small southern town in the state of Mississippi. A couple of rednecks with nothing better to do drive around in their truck and in that moment they see a black girl of about 10 years old who is returning home bringing the groceries she just bought. They have no better idea than to abduct the girl, rape her, beat her and hang her from a tree. Awful, right? Fortunately, the victim survives and is able to identify the van of his perpetrators. The police find the van and arrest the offenders.

The girl's father goes to see a lawyer who has previously defended his brother for a misdemeanor, and asks what the chances are that the rednecks who attacked his daughter will go free. Hearing the answer, he grabs an assault rifle, goes to court, and hides in the broom closet until the rapists are brought in for their hearing.

Once he has the criminals within range, he guns them down and they die instantly, but he also accidentally wounds one of the deputies, causing serious injuries to his knee, which will eventually lead to the amputation of the leg.

With this the film is established, which deals with the trial of the man who killed those who raped his daughter and crippled a deputy. There is not only the issue of justice into one's own hands, which on paper seems simple, but if one puts oneself in this person's place and thinks about how they would react if someone touched their own daughter, or their wife, or their mother, maybe Maybe it is not so black and white, or in any case it should not be taken lightly, but the racial component, the pressures from both sides to obtain a verdict, the intervention of the NAACP and the KKK. On the other hand, there is a man who, without any blame, lost a leg.

Directed by Joel Schumacher, the same director who almost destroyed the Batman film franchise but who does a good job here, thank goodness. As for the performances, they are good. My only complaint, perhaps, is that Oliver Platt is rarely used, but hey, the film is long and they weren't going to stretch it more just to please me. There are solid supporting roles, like Chris Cooper, who plays the crippled sheriff, or Kiefer Sutherland, who plays the brother of one of the rednecks. Donald Sutherland also appears, in a character that bears no relation to his son's in real life, they don't do father and son here.

In addition to the main drama, the film details what life is like for a lawyer who has to juggle to pay his bills and what happens when not only his life but that of his family is threatened. Beyond his skill on the stand, Jake Brigance (Matthew McConaughey) is an everyday man, just as Carl Lee Hailey (Samuel L. Jackson) is a simple, hard-working man. It's important to note that the performances of McConaughey and Jackson in this film are quite different from the ones we usually see from them today, which are often caricatures of themselves. As for Ellen Roark, the law student who joins Brigance's team and gets him out of the fire on more than one occasion, she is played by Sandra Bullock in a register without unnecessary fanfare. More than ever, Bullock plays the pretty but approachable "next door neighbor" in this film.

In general the characters are believable. As for the situations through which they pass, they avoid some common places and fall into others. In addition, there are some situations that possibly would not take place in a real trial since either they would have been objected to by one side or the other or the judge would not have allowed them.

The confrontation is posed here not in terms of legality or illegality, but in terms of humanity or inhumanity. Carl Lee is human, his daughter's rapists are inhuman. (And besides, it is about rapists and murderers. Yes, murderers, since they tried to kill the girl after raping her.) Note that this is not a petty crime or one that moves compassion, such as the one who steals a piece of bread out of hunger, nor is it about a couple of innocent people imprisoned by mistake, like in My Cousin Vinny (1995). A Time to Kill puts the spotlight on the father and his lawyer. The antagonists are the others. The viewer must decide if he is on the side of the father or that of the rapists and the film makes the decision easy for him: the vileness of the crime, the baseness and lack of repentance of the rapists and the certainty that it is they, and not others, those who raped and tried to kill the girl. The mother of one of the rapists barely appears in a couple of scenes in one McConaughey asks her point-blank how many other girls her son has raped, the prosecutor is an unscrupulous Kevin Spacey.

When one of the "villains" dies in the middle of the flames, no one sheds a tear. And there is the angle of the clash of the races: a black man tried by a white judge and jury. One tends to side with the one who is at a disadvantage. Of course, it must be recognized that making a film that showed the side of the family of the rapists would have been much more complicated.

You may think it's a manipulative movie, but I found it, above all else, enjoyable. It's not a perfect movie, but it entertains and makes you think. It may not be for every palate, but the final balance is positive and it will not disappoint whoever takes a look at it.