A Time to Kill

6/16/2023

**It's a good movie, but I've seen better courtroom dramas.** I saw this film not long ago and was very impressed with its quality. I didn't know, however, that it was based on a novel by John Grisham (I've never read it, and I have doubts if it was translated into Portuguese), and based very lightly on the emotional testimony of a young girl victim of rape. It should be noted, moreover, and by mere curiosity, that, in the real case behind the novel, the victim was a white girl and the man accused of having raped her was black. In summary, it's very good, but it's not a perfect film, and it pales in comparison to other much more consistent and effective courtroom dramas. Joel Schumacher is the director of this movie, and that's really surprising me because his work rarely pleases me.

8/27/2023

The opening scenes of this movie are the sort that stay with you for ever: the brutal assault and murder of a young girl by two rednecks in Mississippi. Before their trial, they are gunned down in the courthouse by the girl's bereft father "Carl Lee Hailey" (Samuel L. Jackson) and it falls to "Brigance" (Matthew McConaughey) to defend the man in a state riddled with institutional and communal bigotry. Kevin Spacey is effective as the DA ("Buckley") who assumes the all white jury will never countenance the murder of these two odious creatures by a black man, but he doesn't count on the resolution - despite threats to himself and to his family - of "Brigance" and of his feisty assistant "Ellen" (Sandra Bullock). Joel Schumacher really does capture the almost viscerally racist elements of Joh