![]() ![]() With little going for him other than the moral support of his disbarred and drunken former law professor (Donald Sutherland), secretary (Brenda Fricker) and lawyer buddy (Oliver Platt), Brigance takes on the murder case and begins to get a taste of what he’s up against when he’s threatened with dire personal consequences if his defense is successful. To whom should Hailey turn for his defense but to another of Grisham’s patented down-and-out Southern lawyers, in this case young, good-looking Jake Brigance (Matthew McConaughey), who previously got Hailey’s brother off on a charge. Jackson), can’t restrain himself and guns down the goons as they are being led through the county courthouse, blowing away the knee of an innocent deputy (Chris Cooper) in the process. The white trash perpetrators are easily apprehended, but the girl’s infuriated father, Carl Lee Hailey (Samuel L. Just as much of a synthetic fabrication as other Grisham yarns, this one nonetheless emerges as more substantial due to the social fabric and unavoidably contentious legal issues at its core, as well as its colorful cast of characters.īlood-boiling opening has two bad ol’ boys grabbing a 10-year-old black girl off a country road, tying her up, and beating and raping her within an inch of her life. With its “ To Kill a Mockingbird” setup of an earnest white lawyer defending a black man of a crime that’s a particular affront to rednecks, pic stokes the political and emotional coals in ways calculated to appeal to middle-of-the-road and liberal humanist whites as well as to blacks, whichcould translate into sizable crossover business. ![]()
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