THE PELICAN
BRIEF
½/**** Image C+ Sound C+
starring Julia Roberts, Denzel Washington, Sam Shepard, John Heard
screenplay by Alan J. Pakula, based on the novel by John Grisham
directed by Alan J. Pakula
A TIME TO KILL
½*/**** Image B+ Sound B+
starring Sandra Bullock, Samuel L. Jackson, Matthew McConaughey, Donald
Sutherland
screenplay by Akiva Goldsman, based on the novel by John Grisham
directed by Joel Schumacher
PRIMAL FEAR
***/**** Image B Sound B+ Extras B
starring Richard Gere, Laura Linney, John Mahoney, Edward Norton
screenplay by Steve Shagan and Ann Biderman, based on the novel by
William Diehl
directed by Gregory Hoblit
by Walter Chaw Hand-in-hand with the digital revolution of the 1990s is
this backlash against the same as technical paranoia pictures like The
Net and Hackers cohabit multiplexes with
an epidemic of John Grisham adaptations. Starting with The
Firm in 1993 and running through to The Client (1994),
The Pelican Brief (1995), A
Time to Kill and The Chamber (1996), The
Rainmaker (1997), and The Gingerbread Man
(1998), these pictures share a deep interest in not just the low-grade
hackery of Grisham's declarative-prose style, but also super-secret
societies in the halls of power. Thus was limply resurrected the
paranoid New American Cinema. It was different this time around because
the ways our realities were being manipulated by the popular culture
and mass media were no longer a product of a governmental conspiracy,
but of a perceptual mutation.* It's not about not trusting the
government (nobody has trusted the government since 1972)–it's about
not trusting the medium of film itself. Not surprisingly, directors who
carved out their reputations in the Seventies–like Francis Ford
Coppola, Robert Altman, and Alan J. Pakula–jumped on board the Grisham
train, finding familiar ground in his gallery of paper-based heroes
(lawyers, judges, newspapermen) and perhaps thinking they'd bought a
ticket back to relevance when in fact they were working in an odd
parallel phenomenon that would fail almost entirely to have any kind of
relevance or longevity. Instead of producing classics, these legends
were excavating mines they'd already exhausted three administrations
ago.
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When two Supreme Court justices are killed
on the same night by ace assassin (and inspiration for the Mark
Strong-portrayed hitman from Revolver) Khamel
(Stanley Tucci), plucky law student Darby Shaw (Julia Roberts) takes it
upon herself to pen the titular brief containing her theory as to who's
behind the murders. Unfortunately for her and her lover, law professor
Callahan (Sam Shepard), her brief gets passed around the FBI, thus
putting her in the crosshairs of Khamel and a vast conspiracy that
leads all the way up to (wait for it) the White House. It's two hours
of blather, endless and circular, and the dialogue is almost
exclusively expository. It's dusty and creaky after fourteen years on
the shelf, dealing with drilling wetlands and the like–but the real
question is how Darby's theories could possibly be so privileged when,
truth be known, if two Supreme Court Justices were offed in quick
succession, everybody and their sister would be coming to the same
broad conclusions this not-especially-bright law student reached.
Roberts, for her part, is turned all the way down. She whispers her
lines, looks up coyly from beneath her ostrich lashes, curls up on
couches in giant sweaters, and confesses everything she knows to ace
investigative reporter Gray Grantham (African-American actor–this is
relevant–Denzel Washington), the one person in this whole dirty
business she can trust. For his part, the best poor Pakula can muster
in terms of tension is a protracted taxi chase between two men in
suits, over the course of which the camera lingers on our national
monuments. It's a mess, in other words–a giant, crushingly boring mess
stinking of howling plot contrivances like the random student who flags
Grantham down to pass on a key bit of information for no discernible
reason. Is the implication that, because he's black, this student has
some sort of affinity for the struggles of a brother-man? That's
certainly the foundation of Grantham's relationship with the elderly
black janitor who cleans the Oval Office. If only The Pelican
Brief were purposefully controversial.
The problem is that it's so desperate to
manufacture meaning that it not only fails to notice promising avenues
of exploration–it doesn't realize until far too late that the well
it's tapping has long run dry. That weird noise you hear is what a
straw makes when it's slurping against the bottom. The allure of
Grisham is that he's fake-complicated: the conspiracies he postulates
appear twisty; the lock-step click-clack of dominoes falling one after
another affects the illusion of discovery. Pakula had better luck with
his 1990 adaptation of a Scott Turow novel, Presumed Innocent,
which seemed more an indictment of the previous decade's facility with
morality than these later attempts at grasping the fascination we
developed as a culture in 1994 for the O.J. Simpson trial. I'd offer
that it wasn't the trial but the televisual representation of the same
that fascinated us–that, like lesbian porn for heterosexuals, the
reality of two women uninterested in their voyeur is roughly as
compelling as another murder trial in California. But make it a fantasy
of celebrity and, in O.J.'s case, miscegenation, sexual jealousy,
retribution, and so on… It wasn't about the trial, man, it was about
the way narrate history; when the jury came back with exactly the wrong
conclusion, it served to confirm that nothing that you see has anything
to do with what's real. No accident that '94 sported flicks like Forrest
Gump, True Lies, Quiz Show,
In The Mouth of Madness, Disclosure,
Cemetery Man, and Natural
Born Killers–all marking this turn towards a collective
perceptual reorganization around an idea that the fundamental way we
tell each other stories is irrevocably corrupt and completely
corruptible. The Pelican Brief, alas, is garbage
interested in the wrong piece of a two-piece puzzle.
Worse, while much is made of the way that
Darby is constantly touching her hands to Grantham's, the taboo of
their never-consummated love is robbed of any tension because we know
of Washington's no-white-women contract clause, reducing their
relationship to a weird father/daughter one with dominant black man and
submissive white woman archetypes the unfortunate fallout. James Horner
contributes another of his patented full-on anal-rape scores that
vaingloriously establishes the journalist as the white knight and the
Grantham-Darby relationship as one of the most romantic, unrequited
love stories of all time. Easy to detect in hindsight, I'd argue, too,
that Roberts may be a creature of a very particular cultural moment,
and that whatever effervescence made her a megastar was not simply
fleeting, but possibly fled altogether on review. The difference
between Roberts and Audrey Hepburn–and there's less difference than
one might have initially thought–is that if neither is an actress,
Hepburn is still a movie star.
Proof that someone else watching The
Pelican Brief decided that its great unplumbed racial
subplots would be worth a Grisham picture of their own, enter the
patently offensive A Time To Kill, underscoring its
liberal screed by opening with caricatures of rednecks at war with
caricatures of black people: basketball hoops on the one side,
Confederate flags on the other; front-yard barbecues, late-night
cross-burnings; marble halls of justice, raucous Baptist churches;
Kevin Spacey's DA summation on the one side all superego, Matthew
McConaughey's tear-jerking monologue on the other all soul. Of course
it's Joel Schumacher, coming back to Grisham land–the meat in his
Batman sandwich, if you will–after 1994's The Client
to lend his unique populist sheen to the racial divide in the Deep
South. Only a screenplay by Akiva Goldsman could make things worse–and
lo and behold, speak of the devil and Old Scratch appears.
McConaughey is green defense attorney Jake,
who, because of honour or somefuck, decides to defend a black man, Carl
Lee (Samuel L. Jackson), charged with double homicide because the sons
of the Earth he mowed down happen to have confessed to raping and
mutilating Carl Lee's ten-year-old daughter. If more motive were
needed, the little girl is now incapable of having her own children in
about five years or so, and a resurgent Klan led by vengeful Freddie
(Kiefer Sutherland) is menacing Jake's very own adorable moppet (and
hot wife (Ashley Judd)). Jake has a Girl Friday (Sandra Bullock) who
surfaces every few scenes to pluck it up and a sleazy sidekick (Oliver
Platt) with the same function. Not to mention, he has a mentor (Donald
Sutherland), some in-laws, and one hell of an accent. Critics at the
time observed that McConaughey in this role reminded them of Paul
Newman and Marlon Brando; pretty much, he reminds me of McConaughey in
a cheap suit and a cheaper Mississippi drawl, though he's completely,
utterly natural–probably because he lacks the native, animal sense to
realize he's on camera. You could call it "effortless" if you're so
inclined, but his Jake, to me, all smirks and great hair like every
character McConaughey plays, is best described as unctuous. A literal
white knight, he's the empty vesicle for not quite enough white guilt
to prevent A Time To Kill from being another movie
that invests the fate of black folks in an unctuous cracker. Its real
usefulness to me is that, as a caricature of To Kill a
Mockingbird, it highlights every ugly crevice of Robert
Mulligan's revered Civil Rights melodrama in sharp, broad terms with
less contemporary pardon because this tiny opera was conjured and
perpetrated in the mid-Nineties rather than the mid-Sixties.
Jake conjures up an insanity plea on behalf
of his client, then, during his closing soliloquy, brings the jury box
to tears with his plangent appeal to imagine the desecration of this
little girl. The bad writing is one thing (and somewhat expected given
that this is Goldsman adaptating Grisham), but it's here that an
ignorant movie becomes malignant in almost precisely the same way as
taking Communion ought to be for a Christian. You're doing what now?
And why? And for whom? This deeply exploitive moment is used as proof
that there can be no justice for a black person in the South because
it's suggested that the horrific images Jake conjures for his soapbox
would be ineffectual unless the white jurors were to imagine a white
victim. He doesn't take the extra step to suggest that they also
imagine that the new perps are black men and that a white man exacting
vigilante justice on said perps would be viewed by them as heroes for
flipping the bird to the American legal system. It should dawn at this
point that the redneck gumps who do the dirty deed are flying the
Confederate flag in their pickup for probably the same bird-flipping
reasons. It should dawn for anyone not Grisham or Goldsman that the
real conversation in the film ought to have started, not ended, at this
juncture. No matter, as all threads in A Time To Kill
are neatly tied up by the jury's verdict. Schumacher has the audacity
to finish it off with a bucolic barbecue at which Jake drawls, "Well, I
thought our girls should play together!" Never mind that it's unlikely
the Klan will be soothed by the gavel. Never mind the little girl with
the ruptured uterus.
Needless to say, Spacey as the rival DA is
splendid, as he always was before American Beauty
made him a self-styled Celluloid Christ. In truth, there's not a bad
apple in the bunch, making it harder to take when the end-product is
bathetic bullshit. It's straw-man theatre–who wouldn't argue against
child-rape, or for a father's right to defend his kid? Issues of racism
in the United States and the frustrations of our legal system deserve a
more considered conversation than this one. Showing a white guy in a
yellowing wife-beater with a mullet and a stooge is every bit as
offensive as the children of the earth image of black people, living in
shacks, standing by stoic with a single tear streaking down their
cheeks as they recognize the injustice of their world. The blacks teach
the whites valuable lessons, but it's the whites who save the
blacks–sometimes from themselves, as Grisham, Schumacher, and Goldsman
(not a black guy among them) toss in some avaricious ACLU/NAACP lackeys
hungry for their ring in the media circus. All one need know is that A
Time to Kill, armed with its foregone conclusions and
telegraphed epiphanies, pursues the insanity plea when one of the
characters observes that a scant one-percent of such cases are ever
argued successfully.
The insanity plea is likewise at the centre
of Gregory Hoblit's same-year adaptation of William Diehl's Primal
Fear, speaking to synchronicity, sure, but moreover to the
reality of zeitgeist as more than a metaphysical
construct. What is it in the air of 1996 that had the Hollywood machine
interested in making movies from courtroom novels structured around
pleas of insanity? The answer thirteen years down the road seems
obvious, although the Lewinsky scandal in Bill's White House didn't
surface until 1998. Weird, right? The surprise is that Primal
Fear holds up extremely well in the rearview, suggesting that
it adheres to the feverish existentialism attached to the end of our
last millennium more closely than it does to the manic courtroom antics
of the decade's other, secondary obsession. Richard
Gere, always watchable (and he plays competence well), is arrogant
defense attorney Vail, fallen from grace from the DA's office, who've
set ex-flame Janet (Laura Linney) opposite him in a trial of the
century involving disturbed altar boy Aaron (Edward Norton, in his film
debut). Evidently Aaron killed the Catholic Archbishop for forcing him
to shoot amateur porn in his office, and it's up to Vail to pro
bono the lad into a nut hatch instead of the big house. The
usual stuff, certainly, yet the performances are uniformly excellent on
into a weary third act, with a second viewing revealing that Norton is
actually better knowing the twist. (The same might be said of Spacey's
similar turn in The Usual Suspects.) In dealing
with land-ownership issues and corruption in every facet of local
government, it presages the following year's L.A. Confidential.
And in providing numerous opportunities for Norton to carve out a place
for himself as the everyman in the last part of the
decade, the picture proves prescient for the direction of American film
until 9/11 derailed its headlong gallop at actualization.
It's too bad that so much screentime is
devoted to trips to the judge's (Alfre Woodard) chamber, where Vail is
dressed down, and to interludes between Vail and Janet seemingly beyond
the grasp of an essentially phallocentric tale. When it's among men,
however, as in an early scene where Vail visits a mobster and a city
alderman to secure testimony, or another where he rejects the
sanctimony of former boss DA Shaughnessy (John Mahoney) over Chinese
food, Primal Fear lives up to its title's promise
to be about the wet places in the male's lizard brain. Not
inconsequential that the glimpses of self-shot porn are titillating and
directorial: Television-procedural veteran Hoblit understands the
seductive power of voyeurism–and in the middle of a cinematic period
that questions history, it's telling that the trial hinges on a
videotape procured from the room of a man mutilated by having his eyes
torn out as he's reaching for his glasses. Smoothly edited, tautly
paced, it's less a technical piece than a surprisingly cerebral play
revolving around the interactions of smart people doing their best to
squelch that last iota of empathy squirming around in them–the
ultimate undoing of at least one major character. It's a movie about a
fallen world, a truer throwback in that way to the ethic of the New
American Cinema than the simple-minded conservatism of the Grishams,
its heroes only heroes because they believe in order and not because
they're capable of order's championing or restoration. When Vail rolls
the cosmic dice and comes up sevens, it only underscores the aphorism
that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
THE BLU-RAY DISCS
The Pelican Brief and A
Time To Kill trundle onto Blu-ray in skeletal releases from
Warner that scrimp on both special features and technical scrubbing.
While the 2.35:1, 1080p rendering of The Pelican Brief is
a marked improvement over its prehistoric DVD transfer, it's notably
soft and muddy. Pakula's weakness for muted colour schemes is
aggravated by a high "Vaseline" factor as grain is erased and "noise"
disastrously reduced. This isn't to say that there's no grain, but the
image looks like it's been pulled through a condom. Likely not helping
is the decision to pack the film onto a single-layer disc. (Running a
mere 9 minutes longer, A Time To Kill is spread out
over a BD-50.) The accompanying 5.1 Dolby TrueHD audio strains to use
the split-surrounds, relegating a good 90% of the action to the front
and centre channels. The lone special feature is a standard definition
trailer that today buggers the imagination as to how it could inspire
anyone to buy a ticket.
A Time To Kill sports a
superior 2.40:1, 1080p presentation that takes Schumacher's pretentious
sepia tint and pulls out every slick of sweat on every forehead of
every Southerner in the whole damned thing. It's gorgeous, truth be
told, with the overbearing DVNR of The Pelican Brief
arguably more justifiable in a movie from the director of the film
version of The Phantom of the Opera musical, who
would expect nothing less than this deeply-affected perfection. I could
just as well be referring to the picture's themes, but browns are brown
and blacks are sturdy. The attendant 5.1 Dolby TrueHD audio is not too
shabby, either, for although the flick is a courtroom yakker, it's got
more than its share of gunfire and explosions. A late-film crowd scene
wherein an angry mob of protesters has assembled roars in the rear
speakers. Impressive. Another trailer (for A Time To Kill)
marks the platter's sole extra.
Primal Fear docks on the
format from Paramount in a smooth, bright 1.85:1, 1080p video transfer
that unfortunately brings the use of opticals into stark relief. The
credits-through-murder sequence is shot through with harsh grain and
hazy colour differentiation, while Norton's later psychiatric sessions
with Frances McDormand are crystal clear and brilliant. Black is
similarly uneven, with some night scenes diffuse and others pitch. Hard
to get a handle on it–and too much, surely, to ascribe its ambiguity
to design meant to mirror the film's own twistiness. The 5.1 Dolby
TrueHD audio is exceptional, however, with booming effects from every
channel reproduced with clarity and logic. The centrepiece extra is a
feature-length yakker reuniting Hoblit, co-screenwriter Ann Biderman
(who also penned the underrated Copycat–her ticket
to Primal Fear, apparently), producers Gary
Lucchesi and Hawk Koch, and, the real star of the show, casting
director Deb Aquila. Aquila has the least to say of any of the
principals–she'll receive a bigger showcase in the video-based
supplements. Here, it's Hoblit and Biderman going on at length about
the difficulties of production, most of them occurring before principal
photography as the powers that be fretted over every casting decision
to the point of distraction. Leonardo DiCaprio is mentioned once or
twice as the primary choice for the film's pivotal role, his defection
necessitating an extensive talent search. I like that Hoblit can only
remember Gere starring in Pretty Woman prior to Primal
Fear (he refers to it as "Garry's film") and says something
along the lines of Gere having taken himself out of the movie business
by choice until returning triumphantly for Primal Fear.
It's funny because Gere worked constantly, anchoring seven films in the
six intervening years. For their part, Lucchesi and Koch try to
remember the title of the Arthur pic with Gere as Lancelot. It speaks
to the quality of Gere's choices in this period, I fear.
More Gere reverie in "Primal Fear:
Star Witness" (18 mins.) as Edward Norton, humble and appealing,
remembers the man showing up on set with long hair after one of his
pilgrimages to the near East only to reappear, transformed, a few days
later at the start of filming. Norton… Listen, I don't like him
lately, don't like anything he's done post-1999 except The 25th
Hour–which I only really liked in retrospect. But herein,
Norton comes off as extremely unaffected and genuinely grateful for
this shot at the big time. Aquila says that 2000 young men–every actor
in the business within a certain age bracket–tried out for the part of
Aaron and that they were on the verge of giving up until Norton walked
through the door. She describes a neck-and-neck to the end for the
role, though we're never told who the other finalist was. (According
to rumour it was Matt Damon.-Ed.) In any event, a nice
featurette that doesn't outstay its welcome.
"Primal Fear: The Final
Verdict" (18 mins., HD) is a more conventional making-of in which
Hoblit, his producers, and Norton and Linney recap the genesis of the
production and the trepidation with which the studio approached the
material, leading to a tight shooting schedule and budgetary concerns.
Hoblit's accomplishment in making a tabloid-effective bit of schmutz
that doesn't entirely sacrifice some good thinking justifies in part my
diehard affection for his hopelessly sentimental Frequency.
Finally, "Psychology of Guilt" (14 mins., HD) brings in all manner of
Justices and forensic doctors to talk about the insanity plea and how
it's basically a complete fiction. Brief discussion ensues around John
Hinckley, Jr. and the Hillside Strangler (with interesting archival
footage of Ken Bianchi lapsing into his aggressive "Steve" alter ego),
while one expert decries Primal Fear for its
glorification of the defense even though the film itself already seems
a pretty firm condemnation of it. The picture's theatrical trailer
rounds out the disc. Originally published: April 1, 2009.
