The usual John Grisham legal hokum, tranformed by director James Foley into surprisingly grim and affecting stuff. Callow Chicago-based lawyer Adam Hall (Chris O'Donnell) is the grandson of unrepentant racist and anti-Semite Sam Cayhall (Gene Hackman), who -- after
years of stays of execution -- is scheduled to die for his part in a 1967 Mississippi bombing that killed two small children. Hall goes back down South to handle his grandpa's final appeals, and in the process stirs up a hornet's nest of secrets long buried, but far from dead. If you've seen the
sensationalistic A TIME TO KILL, this will feel deeply familiar: the Klan, racist conspiracies, an apparently ...
Released:
1996
Rated:
R
Length:
113 mins