A Time to Kill (1996)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

Joel Schumacher

Writers (WGA):

John Grisham (novel)
Akiva Goldsman (screenplay)

Release Date:

24 July 1996 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Thriller

Tagline:

A lawyer and his assistant fighting to save a father on trial for murder. A time to question what they believe. A time to doubt what they trust. And no time for mistakes.

Plot:

A young lawyer defends a black man accused of murdering two men who raped his 10-year-old daughter, sparking a rebirth of the KKK.

Plot Keywords:

White Trash | Trial | Racial Tension | Punishment | White Anglo Saxon Protestant

Awards:

Nominated for Golden Globe. Another 6 wins & 8 nominations

Cast

Matthew McConaughey	...	Jake Tyler Brigance
Sandra Bullock	...	Ellen Roark
Samuel L. Jackson	...	Carl Lee Hailey
Kevin Spacey	...	D.A. Rufus Buckley
Oliver Platt	...	Harry Rex Vonner
Charles S. Dutton	...	Sheriff Ozzie Walls (as Charles Dutton)
Brenda Fricker	...	Ethel Twitty
Donald Sutherland	...	Lucien Wilbanks
Kiefer Sutherland	...	Freddie Lee Cobb
Patrick McGoohan	...	Judge Omar Noose
Ashley Judd	...	Carla Brigance
Tonea Stewart	...	Gwen Hailey
Rae'Ven Larrymore Kelly	...	Tonya Hailey (as RaéVen Larrymore Kelly)
Darrin Mitchell	...	Skip Hailey
LaConte McGrew	...	Slim Hailey

MPAA:

Rated R for violence and some graphic language.

Runtime:

149 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

Iceland:16 | South Korea:15 | Philippines:R-18 | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Germany:12 (bw) | Italy:T | Netherlands:16 | Norway:15 | Portugal:M/12 | Singapore:NC-16 | Spain:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:15 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Canton, Mississippi, USA

Company:

Regency Enterprises

Trivia:

Woody Harrelson wanted to play Jake Brigance, but author John Grisham objected to his casting.

Goofs:

Continuity: When Jake is giving his final summation and Lucien enters the courtroom, he stands at the back. Lucien is missing in subsequent shots of the room, only to return at the end of the summation.

Quotes:

Tim Nunley: Sure am sorry about your brother, Freddie. Ol' Willard too... good boys both.
Freddie Lee Cobb: Ten years ago, that n*gger'd be hanging by the end of a rope with his balls in his mouth. Now you tell me what's wrong with this country.
Winston: Klan would know what to do.
Freddie Lee Cobb: My granddaddy, he was Klan.
Tim Nunley: Ain't been no Klan around here for years.
Winston: Ah they's still some boys around.
Tim Nunley: What you mean them skinheads that want to blow up the government?
Winston: No sir, good god-fearing Klan... I got a friend, used to be active, could give him a call.
[...]

Movie Connections:

Spoofed in Bee Movie (2007)

Soundtrack:

Ritz

..most people missed the point the movie is not present-day..

I had to stop reading the commentaries, because some people thought they were attorneys and rambled-on about injustice. My Friends, in the era this film is about, none of the story would be unusual. There are prejudices much worse even now - I was amazed that one person actually compared this wonderful film to "Crash": give the world a break!! If "Crash"...Ugh!...proved anything, is was to reassure EVERYONE racism is still America's cancer.

I am from Biloxi, Mississippi - along the Gulf Coast. That city has always been a melting-pot, so many different races live together. In my youth, it was Czechs and other European races. Today, can you believe, it is Vietnamese ! The city has also always been a tourist-area, and always had some form of gambling before it became The Las Vegas of the South - perhaps that has tempered the people there from the state's interior's citizens. Canton - during the '60s - would have been just as it is portrayed in this film.

Because of the many TV-courtroom sitcoms, etc., today's population would wonder why there was no strongly-worded assurance the district attorney planned "to appeal". What? We are not talking about modern-day justice in this film - Shamefully, this is Mississippi at its worst, and I know about that. We didn't have this kind of racism in Biloxi then, perhaps because African-Americans "stayed in their place", a shameful statement if there ever were one. All the foreigners and citizens of other states who are not aware of those days - how can you comment on the film, except to give a critique ? Like many of the people who wrote commentaries, I can watch this film once-a-month. ALL of the cast gave a superb performance; the story did not drag; the places that were filmed were true-to-life; to some folk's surprise, there ARE people who live in the state who do not speak like idiots: people think I'm English!; Mathew Mc was astounding and Sandra Bullock's performance was exactly as it should have been, as an activist "little rich girl"; Southern gave a true performance of a alcoholic lawyer; Sam Jackson was masterful and expressed the difference in being "white" and "black"; Kevin Stacy's portrayal of a Southern lawyer with all the connections, right on; I can think of no one who wasn't brilliantly cast.

Missed by many people who made comments, this film is a statement that today we are brutally MEAN to one another: "Crash" re-states this fact, although it is not nearly as poetic. Do I own this film? You betcha!! I'll most likely have to buy another, and it will be money well-spent. Grishom knows how to get our attention, and "A Time to Kill" clearly demonstrates all who were involved in its making were determined to keep his story pure. Wake-up, People - many parts of our world are not pretty today......