A Time to Kill (1996) and Runaway Jury (2003)

Premise 1: After the rape and attempted murder of his ten year-old daughter, Carl Lee Hailey (Samuel L. Jackson) decides to take the law into his own hands and kills the two men accused before they ever go to trial. He turns to Jake Tyler Brigance (Matthew McConaughey) to defend him, and Brigance does, with the help of a beautiful law student (Sandra Bullock), a lecherous divorce lawyer (Oliver Platt), and his alcoholic former boss (Donald Sutherland).

Premise 2: After her husband his gunned down, a woman (Joanna Going) sues the gun company. Wendall Rohr (Dustin Hoffman) takes the case, and the gun company hires Rankin Fitch (Gene Hackman) to help them select the best possible jury for them by any means possible. Meanwhile, Nick Easter (John Cusack) infiltrates the jury and, with the help of Marlee (Rachel Weisz), offers up the jury to the highest bidder.

N.B.: Yes, this is two movies in the same blog. Two John Grisham movies. And that's the point.

Here's my beef with John Grisham: he's the male equivalent of Danielle Steele. I'm not saying his court room dramas are the same as her romance novels. I hear he does amazing things with character development. Or was that Tom Clancey? In any case, he churns out what is basically the same story over and over again, and people buy in scores. Then, they get made into movies which even more people flock to in droves. So I'm wondering . . . why?

It isn't plot. All the plots are exactly the same. In fact, in these two movies, the juries hand back one hundred percent implausible verdicts. Oh, and outside sources that wish to control the outcome of the trial terrorize the people involved. Oh, look, plot twists. True to life? On the first count: no. On the second two: yeah.

And it sure isn't the characters. Could they be more one dimensional? See, you think they are interesting and complex at first because of all the crazy things happening to them. But, the plot will tell you, time and time again that they good guys are rewarded and the bad guys end up angry and alone. Good guys never comprise their morals (even if it seems like they are going to or seems like they already have), and bad guys are completely immoral, willing to hurt anyone or anything as long as it will benefit their "cause". (N.B. "White power" isn't a cause. Not at all. Because whites always have the power. Seriously, how many really oppressed white people do you know who have to suffer under the oppression of blacks? None? How about Hispanics? None, again, eh? Surely Asians/Southeast Asians, right? Really? None. Except for rare exceptions such as white slavery? I never would have guessed.)

Well, maybe it's the cast. A Time to Kill: Jackson, McCounaughey, Bullock, Platt, Sutherland, Kiefer Sutherland, Charles Dutton, Brenda Fricker, Ashley Judd, Kevin Spacey, the list goes on and on. It's a star-studded extravaganza! Runaway Jury: Cusack, Hoffman, Hackman, Weisz, Bruce McGill, Jeremy Piven, Jennifer Beals, Luis Guzman, Dylan McDermott, etc. A Time to Kill beats Runaway Jury by one name listed. Still, an impressive lot.

Okay, one point for cast. What about direction? Joel Schumacher is responsible for A Time to Kill, and his filmography is nothing to shake a stick at. Frankly, he's the thriller writer's dream come true. Runaway Jury's Gary Fleder hasn't quite got the experience of Schumacher (19 to 5), but his previous works, Don't Say a Word and Kiss the Girls show that he's no slouch in the director's chair. Yet another man that knows the balance between action and thriller, providing carefully measured doses of both.

Okay, we are up to two negatives and two positives. That puts us back at zero. So what is it then? Both movies have different screenwriters and composers, which are the only other points of comparison I can come up with. And that leads to my dilemma: I know all these bad things about these two movies, yet I like both. They are really quite good. I asked someone whose opinion on film I generally trust, and she admitted to liking not only these two John Grisham movies but also two others.

So far, here's the possibility I've come up with: Grisham offers a near perfect blend of reality and fantasy. The plots always seem based in reality, yet the events within can border on the ridiculous. They are the perfect escape movies: emotional, violent, sexy, sad. Just like I have judged his books: perfect for the airport, bus commute, or gym. All sorts of things are happening, yet they do not required your devoted and undivided attention. It's not the stream of consciousness stuff like James Joyce's Ulysses or T.S. Eliot's The Hollow Men. And that's okay. In fact, it's better than okay. It's great. Stream of consciousness isn't for everyone. And certainly not all the time. Grisham is then, I suppose, a divertissement.