Review of A Time to Kill (1996) by Jim M — 23 Jun 2011

Canton, Mississippi: A young black girl is beaten, raped and left for dead. Her assailints are quickly captured. On their way to the prelimanary hearing the girls father Carl Lee Hailey (Samuel L. Jackson) guns them down with an M-16 also crippling a deputy. Carl Lee chooses inexperianced local lawyer Jake Brigance (Matthew McConaughey) to defend him in a trial that will ignite racial tensions threwout Canton....

Well this is certainly a well made film, it's legal aspect seems a bit fuzzy. This case is pretty open and shut, Carl Lee did take the law into his own hands, no one denies that not even Carl Lee but he's still found innoccent? Yes Jury Nullification is a real thing but I'm pretty damn sure the prosecution can keep appealing this shit all the way to the Supreme Court where eventually someone will have the sense to say "Uh no, you don't get to dispense justice yourself", see "A Time to Kill" wants to be the Courtroom version of a vigilante/revenge film here's the problem, in all good vigilante/revenge films the system is broken, corrupt or inadequate to deal with the crime the protagonist having no other recourse but to seek retribution him/her self. Carl Lee on the other hand kills the 2 men before they have been put on trial, the legal system in A Time to Kill IS WORKING indeed it appears form the film it only starts to break down when Carl Lee is put on trial and half the town decides the law shouldn't apply to him. If the men who had brutalized his daughter had gotten say 10 years out on probation in 5 then yes by all means he's in the right to gun those fuckers down. The film tries to get the audience to heavily side with Carl Lee by playing up the racial tensions angle (ie he's only on trial cause he's black...go fuck yourself movie that's a pile of horse shit and you know it). There's a subplot about the KKK resurfacing threating Brigance, riots and the National Guard being called in (in that regard the films view is too localized, one needs to get the sense of the MUCH wider implications. You have armed soldiers one the streets of an American city this has now become a NATIONAL issue). Brigance makes his impassioned speach and Carl Lee gets off scott free. Question, you've just established a precident for revenge killing, Kiefer Sutherland plays the brother of one of the men gunned down by Carl Lee, Carl Lee killed those men because essentially he was pissed off, Kiefer Sutherland is pissed off his brothers dead, does Kiefer Sutherland have the right to gun down Carl Lee? Actually there are several issues that troubled me or struck me as odd.

1)Deputy Loomis (Chris Cooper) is also shot and crippled by Carl Lee. Aside form the fact that his shooting would be tried seperatly from the 2 red necks irregardless of whether he felt Carl Lee was justified in his actions, and irregardless that Carl Lee should be up on charges of A)reckless indangerment (firing an assault rifile in a crowded room might just have consequences other then what you intended Carl Lee) and B) legally because its an assault rifle thats a mandatory 15 years (assault rifles can not legally be used for self-defense of any kind). No what bothers me is that well Carl Lee says he's sorry NO ONE mentions that he's crippled an innocent man, NO ONE suggest that for that if for nothing else there needs to be consequeces. Even the fucking Sheriff (Charles S. Dutton) is in Carl Lee's corner never mind that one of his men was nearly killed (making the one deputy who joins the KKK slightly more sympathetic....did I just type that....fucking movie).

2)The death of the Grand Dragon of Mississippi (Kurtwood Smith). Yes he's a racist asshole, I find his views deplorable, but its never mentioned that he's actually committed a crime. Yet during a mini riot he gets hit with a Molotov Cocktail and is burned to death. Not one mention is made of this other then some Klansmen mentioning he's dead. What the fuck? Not one mention is made that the police are investigating who threw the Molotov. As I recall the Klans actions had been limited to intimidation and that by Kiefer Sutherland. Well Sheriff caught another body gonna do anything? No? Uh, your kinda giving the Klan a reason to get violent and start killing people (indeed according to the fucked up logic that sets Carl Lee free, the Klan now has a perfectly valid precident to get violent). Worse the filmakers (including Lawyer/Author John Grisham) seem to being saying that it's ok to kill people who hold beliefs we personally find repugnent, your openning the flood gates their my friend and fuck you once more for making me sound sympathetic to the Klan.

3)Wider Implications regarding Vigilantism. Uhhhh you do realize in letting Carl Lee off you've basically said Lawyers are useless, Law Enforcent is useless, Judges and Juries are useless, the legal system is useless. What the film is arguing for is in essence Lex Talionis (Law of Retribution) only administered by the individual, so its really more Law of the Strong, the Law of the Jungle. You do realize you've just green-lit every mother fucker with a grudge to go out and seek some personal satisfaction? I sure as fuck hope you love the 2nd Amendment because the only way to surivive in the society you've just created is to arm yourself to the teeth. Indeed what the film is arguing for is Anarchy, the complete and total destruction of the Nation-State. Letting Carl Lee off seems to also indicate a desire for a 2-Tiered Legal system in practice and theory. The law here is not being applied equally (everyone bends over ass backwards because Carl Lee is black and angry).

4)I'd like to see a sequal..."A Time to Kill Part 2" dealing with the repercussions of the case like say how the Case of Carl Lee is used to fuel enlistment in violent hate groups and anti-goverment militias, the Mississippi KKK in particular would have expierenced a boom in numbers after the gross miscarriage of justice that saw Carl Lee go free (note to mister Grisham, white vigilantes have been tried and convicted). Ironically the KKK and it's ilk begins a reign of violence and terror in earnest against its percieved enemies justifying it by A)the precendent set by Carl Lee being declared innocent despite his confession and B) the murder of the former Grand Dragon. The film and possably its sequal because hey, triologies are in right now, would follow Jake Brigance in a first Mississippi that becomes increasingly Anarchic as he witness' the begging of the 2nd American Civil War which leads to an Internaitonal Intervention which fails as the country ultimatly Balkinize.

..........urgh fuck this movie, and fuck the filmmakers for giving me a reason to be sympathetic to the KKK*, now that I've typed that I'm going to need to bath in Lye and scrub myself with fucking Sand Paper.

*Please note Jim McCaskill is not actually sympathetic to the KKK or any of its ilk. But seriously fuck this movie.