Movie Review: A Time To Kill

Term Paper Title	Movie Review: A Time To Kill
# of Words	526
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	2.1

Movie Review: A Time To Kill

I never read A Time To Kill by John Grisham because the book bored me. But I
wonder why it did bore me because the movie was engrossing and entertaining.
Maybe it is because Akiva Goldsman took out most of the boring parts. I usually
love Grisham, but this book was just too slow. However, another thing that made
the movie more entertaining is the actors.

The movie begins with the rape scene that you have probably heard about. If you
haven't, it's a quick-edited scene so it doesn't show much, but still makes your
stomach churn. Jake Brigance (Matthew McConaughey) describes it graphically in
his summation. Anyway, what makes the scene so shocking is that it is a 10 year
old girl being raped. The two men are captured and while ascending a staircase
for their preliminary trial, the girl's father, Carl Lee Hailey (Samuel L.
Jackson), runs out of a closet with a gun and shoots the two men and a cop. The
two men die and the cop has his leg amputated.

This sets off the main plot of the story. Hailey gets Brigance to defend him for
virtually nothing. During a courtroom scene, Eileen Roarke (Sandra Bullock, in a
surprisingly small role for having top billing) helps Brigance to get the trial
moved to another town. Unfortunately, the judge (Patrick McGoohan) decides
against moving the trial. Brigance needs to get a jury of young, married men
with children. What does he get? A jury of women and old men. So Brigance has
his work cut out for him, especially when he is up against the crue...

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