Review of The Pelican Brief (1993) by Filipeneto — 01 Sep 2019

A regular conspiracy in a movie where the script's logic flaws are all too obvious.

This is yet another movie involving the US government and far-fetched conspiracy theories. This time, everything revolves around an environmental issue.

The plot is simple, but far-fetched enough to confuse the most inattentive audience: After two US Supreme Court judges are mysteriously murdered, Darbie Shaw, a law student, realizes that there should be some connection between the two judges and that they should both have been killed because of a lawsuit in which both participated. From then on, she goes ahead with a theory in a file that will eventually reach the CIA, leading to a series of murders and putting Shaw herself in danger of life. To prevent everything from being drowned out by the government, she contacts Gray Grantham, a journalist investigating the case.

Personally, I think one of the biggest shortcomings of this movie is its script: Based on a book I've never read, the movie takes too long to develop and only halfway through we find out what mysterious theory Shaw wrote and why so many people seem to be willing to kill her. That is, we spend the initial half of the movie watching people die or flee so they don't die without us knowing why. The next half of the movie is, however, much less interesting. In addition, there are issues of lack of logic in some details, which the film deftly ignores, but our mind unveils as we begin to think about it.

Julia Roberts is a good actress, but I don't know if she will have fond memories of this movie, where she played a damsel in distress and in need of salvation by a Denzel Washington always ready to face the danger. Nonetheless, the two actors worked well enough and established good chemistry in front of the camera. The rest of the cast doesn't stand out much ... except maybe Tony Goldwyn and Sam Shepard, who were great additions to the cast.