Cast a time to kill movie movie#

(Even the crippled deputy blurts out, under oath, that he would have done the same thing.) But can a black man get a fair trial after murdering two white men, even in the “new” South? The movie milks this question for all it's worth, which isn't much, unless the average audience thinks Hollywood will allow Klan thugs to prevail over the hero. (I will have to discuss certain plot points, so be warned.) Everyone in the county knows Carl Lee Hailey killed the two men who raped his daughter, and many of them share his feelings. Grisham should simply be honest enough to recognize that he does the same things he says Stone shouldn't do.Īs a story, “A Time to Kill” works effectively. Artists cannot hold themselves hostage to the possibility that defectives might misuse their work. However, if you leave out everything that might inspire a nut, you don't have a movie left-or a free society, either. But to a twisted mind, their secret meetings and corn-pone rituals might be appealing. One might also ask if Grisham forfeits his right to moral superiority by including a subplot in “A Time to Kill” that gives the Ku Klux Klan prominence and a certain degenerate glamor. But one might reasonably ask whether the creeps would have committed the murder without taking the drugs. Well, Grisham is a lawyer, and lawyers exist to file suits. Stone should be sued by the victim's family, Grisham said, offering the theory that “NBK” was to blame under product-liability laws. Grisham recently attacked director Oliver Stone, alleging that Stone's “ Natural Born Killers” inspired drugged-out creeps to murder a friend of Grisham's.

This is the best of the film versions of Grisham novels, I think, and it has been directed with skill by Joel Schumacher.īut as I watched the film, other thoughts intruded. Jackson as Carl Lee Hailey, the avenging father, and Matthew McConaughey as Jake Brigance, the lawyer.

I was absorbed by “A Time to Kill,” and found the performances strong and convincing, especially the work by Samuel L.