Review of A Time to Kill (1996) by Stuart K — 05 Aug 2013

Directed by Joel Schumacher and adapted from John Grisham's 1989 legal thriller. Schumacher had just come off the success of another Grisham adaptation The Client (1994), not to mention the blockbuster Batman Forever (1995), and this seemed like a perfect follow-up.

It's a film where racial tensions reach melting point, and spill over into the streets of small town America, and it has a brilliant cast as well to it's name. In rural Mississippi, 10-year-old black girl named Tonya Hailey (Rae'Ven Larrymore Kelly) is brutally raped and beaten by Billy Ray Cobb (Nicky Katt) and Pete Willard (Doug Hutchison).

Tonya's father Carl Lee Hailey (Samuel L. Jackson) gets vengeance by shooting them both dead and injuring Deputy Looney (Chris Cooper). Lawyer Jake Brigance (Matthew McConaughey) agrees to defend him, with help from liberal student Ellen Roark (Sandra Bullock), they're up against tough prosecuting lawyer Rufus Buckley (Kevin Spacey) but Billy Ray's brother Freddie Lee (Kiefer Sutherland) reforms the Ku Klux Klan, and decide to get even with Brigance for standing up for Hailey.

It's a tough and sprawling legal epic, one that's gripping and powerful to watch, it has good support from Brenda Fricker, Donald Sutherland, Oliver Platt, Ashley Judd and Patrick McGoohan. It's a shame Schumacher followed this with Batman and Robin (1997).