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New South, Old Clichés
A Time To Kill, starring Matthew McConaughey, Samuel L. Jackson, and Sandra Bullock; directed by Joel Schumacher
Grisham was very particular about how his pet book would be brought to the screen, and writer Akiva Goldsman and director Joel Schumacher (they did The Client) have been extremely faithful, apart from repairing a few structural gaffes--especially the coming-out-of-nowhere climax--that taxed the neophyte novelist's abilities. Yet in a weird way, the fidelity backfires. Schumacher's slick direction streamlines
Jake Brigance is a cliché too, but that doesn't greatly matter--indeed, it may even cease to be true--because Matthew McConaughey turns out to be every bit as wonderful as all the a-star-is-born publicity would have us believe. There are, as another cliché has it, "people the camera likes." This doesn't mean only that they are comely and personable. It means that whenever they are on-screen you want to watch them, even doing nothing, because their intelligence and spirit photographs, and takes on moral and ethical values. Gary Cooper had that quality, the young Paul Newman had it (and so does Ashley Judd, who does wonders with the thankless role of Jake's wife, who may not stand by her man). McConaughey has it to burn. Just look at his face when he is told what has happened to the girl. "Little Tanya?" is all he says, but his world has just changed irrevocably. -- Richard T. Jameson (Rated R for violence, language) |
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