A Time To Kill (4 Stars)

This is a courtroom drama made in 1996 by Joel Schumacher. That's a guarantee for quality in itself. As far as I know, he's never made a bad film. His films range from good to brilliant. It's based on a 1989 novel with the same name written by John Grisham.

Unlike most courtroom dramas, most of the action takes place outside of the courtroom. The film lasts two and a half hours, and there's nothing dull or uninteresting about it. It's not just men in suits shouting "Objection" and "Overruled", although that happens as well.

The film takes place in Canton, a small town in Mississippi. Two white supremacists rape a 10-year-old black girl. They hang her and leave her for dead, but the branch snaps and she manages to get home. She's able to identify the men, and one of her shoes is found in their truck, so they're arrested.

The girl's father, Carl Lee Hailey, visits the lawyer Jake Brigance and tells him that he doesn't expect justice to be done because it's a white man's world. In a similar case, when four white men had raped a black girl, the men were acquitted. Carl asks Jake to defend him if he deals with the matter himself, but Jake tells him not to do anything stupid. Carl doesn't take the advice. A few days later the rapists are in court requesting bail, and Carl bursts in, shooting them both dead.

Now Carl is on trial for murder, facing the death penalty. Jake says his normal fee would be $15,000 but he accepts $900, which is all of Carl's life savings. His defence strategy is based on claiming Carl was insane at the time of the murder. The Ku Klux Klan gets involved, burning down Jake's house and kidnapping his secretary. There are riots outside the court room, so the National Guard is called in. There are various other sub-plots, which I shan't go into here.

Parts of the film are very difficult for me to understand as a non-American. Is the Ku Klux Klan really allowed to march openly in the street the day after burning a cross in someone's lawn? Maybe it's because it can't be proved it was really them who burnt the cross? Can't the law deal with criminals like that?

I also find it difficult to understand the attitudes of the all-white members of the jury. Why does the colour of the accused person play a role? As I've already said elsewhere in this blog, I don't understand racism. I'm not saying that I'm against racism, what I'm saying is that to me racism is so ridiculously stupid that I don't understand how anyone can possibly be a racist. It doesn't make sense to me. I can argue with people about politics, and I can discuss religion and philosophy for hours on end, but if someone's a racist I don't know what to say to him. I can't credit him with enough intelligence to understand the words coming out of my mouth.

But the biggest problem I have with the film is the way the American legal system is portrayed. Carl was defended by pleading insanity. Was it really so insane? If someone raped my daughter and I expected the person to go unpunished, it's a natural reaction to want to get revenge. If Carl was insane, then I'm insane as well, and so are many other parents.

I'm not saying that vigilante justice is correct. Carl took the law into his own hands. He committed murder, so he's guilty. In a private conversation the judge said he would give Carl a 20 year prison sentence if he pleaded guilty. I would have accepted that sentence. Carl didn't regret what he did. It was a premeditated act, and if he'd failed to kill the rapists he would have tried again. Guilty is guilty, and it's unjust to use legal tricks to get him acquitted.

The film has a star studded cast. I could go through the actors one by one, praising their performances, starting with Samuel L. Jackson as Carl Lee Hailey. He's an uneducated man, but not unintelligent. He makes philosophical statements that dumbfound his lawyer.

Patrick McGoohan excels as Judge Noose. Is that name meant as a joke? He plays the role very subtly, displaying his motivation more through what he doesn't say than what he says. He presents himself as impartial, but we can see that his sympathies lie with the town's white people.

This is a film that I'd like to discuss with my friends. If you've seen it, please leave me a comment telling me what you think of it.

Success Rate:  + 1.8

	Order from Amazon.com
	Order from Amazon.co.uk
	Order from Amazon.de