A Time to Kill (1996)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1996
	Director: Joel Schumacher (Flatliners, Phone Booth)
	Actors: Matthew McConaughey (Killer Joe), Sandra Bullock (Speed, Gravity), Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction), Kevin Spacey (American Beauty), Donald Sutherland (Space Cowboys), Kiefer Sutherland (Flatliners)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 04.04.2015, SD VOD,11" computer screen
Synopsis: After his daughter is raped and left for dead by two White Trash young adults, Carl Lee Haley (Jackson) seeks advice to Brigance (McConaughey) in the case he would commit self justice.
Review: I learned only recently (thanks to Netflix again) that the novel by John Grisham that I had read and liked had been adapted to a movie twenty years ago, and the cast looked promising. What I liked in the novel, although it is a bit easy, was the depiction of the usually taboo conflicts between White and Black people in the southern USA. I also liked the whole trial story, and the relationship between the young inexperienced white lawyer defending against all odds a black father guilty of (spoiler, highlight to read) a double homicide in front of witnesses. In his movie Joel Schumacher managed to distillate exactly the same atmosphere as I remembered from the book, for a large part thanks to its two main actors: a great Matthew McConaughey in one of his early roles and Samuel L. Jackson that was showing real acting talent long before becoming Nick Fury in the Marvel movies franchise. And also thanks to a solid bunch of secondary roles: Sutherland father and son (one as mentor, the other as hate-driven delinquent), Ashley Judd as the loving wife, Sandra Bullock as a prodigy lawyer, Kevin Spacey (pre-American Beauty, wonderful) and Patrick McGoohan as District Attorney and Judge respectively. The sets in a southern American town also look good, and the general visual aspect of the movie is pleasant even if not particularly original. So the movie is a quite literal adaptation, but a good one.
Rating: 7 /10