Review of The Firm (1993) by Hugo S — 19 Nov 2009

THE FIRM (1993).

Dir. Sydney Pollack.

Cast. Tom Cruise, Gene Hackman, Jeanne TripplehornBased on a John Grisham novel, The Firm is nothing special, its all been seen before but its quite effective with director Sydney Pollack behind the camera, proving to be suspenseful at times and dramatic when needed.Tom Cruise kind of reprise his role of previous year's A Few Good Men, as a young lawyer, he is less arrogant but just as smart. As usual Cruise gives intensity to his character, except maybe not enough, cause to me The Firm is one of his weakest performance. He flirts with many firms to see which one he'll choose to work for, he can afford it, cause he got some of the best result in school. He ends up picking a job in Memphis, and right from the first moment there are some very dubious behaviors from his employers, almost sounding like a sect at some point - Scientology anyone ? - but he goes in with his wife. They get a huge house, a new car and everything an American can dream off in less than twenty cinematic minutes. The alarm clock wakes him up and the film begins.Two of his coworkers die in an accident, or was it an accident, soon, Cruise's character discover things against his will and bring him to think his employers might be crooks. He is an idealist so he cant let it happen, hires a private detective who gets killed. The FBI contacts him and he will have to find a way to help them, get out of it safe and keep his career, it wont be easy.The Firm has the obligatory action scenes near the end, but they are rather suspenseful than thrilling, which is all good. And the film, instead of ending up in a pure Hollywood way - it does in a way though - it manages to bring everything down to the law, which is kind of an exercise in style for John Grisham, and its all good stuff.The cast is pretty impressive, apart from Cruise, we have Gene Hackman, pretty comfortable in his role of a designated mentor. Ed Harris is fun to watch as an FBI agent and Holly Hunter as the secretary of the dead private detective is very archetypical, but always interesting. David Strathairn also appears as Cruise older brother in jail, and they have one of the best scenes together, and it would have been nice to have more scene like this one, but the film is already long enough, over two and a half hours, which is too long for that sort of films, but everything needed to be developed the best way possible. The jazzy score doesnt help, making the film feels longer as the same bit of music is played over and over again.