Blu-Ray/Movie Review: A Time to Kill (Spoilers)

 

+++Warning, the review has spoilers in the third paragraph. If you have not seen the movie and care about being spoiled, skip that paragraph.+++

A Time to Kill is the 1996 movie adaptation of the John Grisham novel of the same name starring Matthew McConaughey, Sandra Bullock, Kevin Spacey, and Samuel L. Jackson. The wonderful supporting cast includes Ashley Judd, Donald and Kiefer Sutherland, Kurtwood Smith, Octavia Spencer, Chris Cooper, Charles S. Dutton, and Oliver Platt.

There are a couple things to keep in mind about this movie. One it was only a story. The movie clearly fictionalizes the very real lynchings and attacks of blacks that were common during the Civil Rights era in the South and the corrupt Southern justice system that allowed the people who were doing the lynchings to go free and make a more modern-day story from it. The twist in this movie is that the father of a child who was attacked takes justice into his own hands and subsequently ends up on trial in that same corrupt justice system. 

Anyone who knows history (especially legal history) is aware of the fact that there was jury nullification many times in the South in favor of whites who had murdered blacks (and who had done so for far less compelling reasons than for which Samuel L. Jackson's character commits murder in this story). What is ultimately done in this story is having the jury nullification going the other way, after leading you to think that it could not possibly happen.

The second thing to keep in mind is that the movie is a courtroom drama, so (despite the story being written by a lawyer) the legal elements, especially the courtroom scenes are almost completely wrong. Anyone who has sat through more than one real trial knows that the vast majority of the time nothing dramatic happens. Lawyers are not allowed to ask 5 min long questions to a witness, and then present another 5 min long soliloquy after the witness answers the question. For the most part, trials are usually very dry and boring, with little to no excitement or things like breaking the witness. So pretty much every courtroom drama ever made has little to no authenticity to any of the legal aspects and this is no different.

If you can get past all that however and just focus on the acting and suspend your disbelief, the movie is very good. The suspension of disbelief will be hard for lawyers and law students. I remember when I watched this while in law school I was basically counting everything it got wrong. But now I can watch it without focusing on all that stuff. I think Samuel L. Jackson and Matthew McConaughey had great chemistry and played off each other very well. Sandra Bullock and McConaughey sold the tension between their characters well, and Donald Sutherland did a great job as the old, washed-up, alcoholic attorney who was advising the young upstart. I also thought Kevin Spacy (regardless of what you might think of him now) did a great job as the slimy district attorney.

The A/V transfer of the movie is very good, especially for a pre-DVD era movie that does not have a ton of special effects. The only extra is a trailer for the movie. There are no deleted scenes, behind-the-scenes material, or the like. Ultimately, if you cannot get past how unreal the story is, then do not get the movie because you probably will not like it. If you are good at suspension of disbelief and can just enjoy the story and good acting (both of which are top-notch), then it is well worth the time to watch.

DVD/TV Series Review: Bull: Season 1

 

Bull is a legal drama that premiered in 2016 starring Michael Weatherly (of NCIS and Dark Angel). Weatherly stars as Dr. Jason Bull, a psychologist who owns a trial analysis company (called Trial Analysis Corp, or TAC) that acts as a jury consultant company and also provides defense counsel to both wealthy defendants and pro-bono clients. The premise of the show is that Bull can select the best jurors to get a verdict for their client, conducts mock trials to figure out how potential jurors will react to the case, and once a jury is seated, uses mirror jurors (people with similar traits to the real jurors) who watch the trial to see how the real jurors are reacting. The show is loosely based on the early career of Dr. Phil (who is a producer on the show) when he did jury consulting work.

The show is basically a case-of-the-week procedural drama, with any serial arcs mostly focused on the personal lives, or lack thereof, of the main characters. The rest of the main cast includes Freddy Rodriguez as Benny Colon, the in-house lawyer for TAC, Geneva Carr as Marissa Morgan, Bull's second-in-command, who is also a psychologist and basically runs the team from TAC while the trial is going on, Christopher Jackson as Chunk Palmer, a fashion stylist who works with the clients to prepare them for court, Jamie Lee Kirchner as Danny James, TAC's lead investigator and a former NYPD detective, and as Cable, TAC's computer expert. The main recurring characters in season 1 are Yara Martinez who plays Isabella Colon, who is Benny's sister and Bull's ex-wife, Jill Flint who plays Diana Lindsay, an adversary and love interest for Bull, and Eliza Dushku, who had a very controversial behind-the-scenes experience on the show.

For those who get the DVD set, there are a handful of extras including a gag reel, deleted and extended scenes, the CBS launch promos that aired before the show premiered, and a behind-the-scenes featurette on season 1. Not a ton of bonus features, but they are there if you want to watch them.

The show is very good and very entertaining. They actually manage to get quite a bit of the law correct, but as in all legal dramas, the courtroom scenes are highly dramatized, and much more entertaining than what happens in real life. Also, the time frame is very compressed, with each case being resolved in a matter of weeks from the time the crime is committed. The big controversy of the season involved Dushku, who asserted that Michael Weatherly sexually harassed her on the set, which ultimately resulted in her leaving the show after her three-episode arc and not being brought back for the second season, which was originally the plan. Weatherly acknowledged he made comments to her that he intended as jokes, but was not aware she was offended until much later, after which he apologized. Whatever the situation was, Dushku's character was a great addition to the show and the fact that her arc abruptly ended when she was clearly being set up for a larger role sucks. That may color whether you want to watch the show, but as far as what was on-screen, it is a good drama that is definitely not a carbon copy of any other legal drama. 

DVD Review: Bull Season 5

 

The 5th season of Bull is the post-covid-lockdown season, so it is shorter (just 16 episodes) and incorporated the pandemic into its storytelling (mostly the use of masks and social distancing in nearly every scene). The first episode, entitled Corona, was a totally covid-centric episode that saw the characters break the fourth wall at the very end to welcome the fans back. After that, the show continued on with its case-of-the-week format with the pandemic always looming in the background. 

For those who get the DVD, it is just a MOD set. It does not have captions in any language and the only extras are deleted scenes for some, but not all, episodes. The length of the deleted scenes for a given episode range from about 35 seconds to over 6 minutes. Overall, the show does a good job with the ensemble cast, giving all of the main characters one centric episode, and then having actual story arcs for others. The focus is still on Bull and this season his relationship with Izzy. Benny had the second-largest arc of the season as he mulls a run for district attorney. Chunk and Miranda are also more involved in the cases this year with Chunk acting as lead attorney in several cases, which would never be the case in real life for someone with his experience level. 

Overall, the show has evolved a lot since season one. The days of focusing a ton on jury selection and the mirror jury are over. The show presumes that the audience understands that (although people just jumping into the show this season may not get the full idea). The show deals with a lot of real-world issues, including BLM, the "Me Too" movement (which is a bit ironic given the allegations Eliza Dushku made against Michael Weatherly), and the like. I think the show continues to be strong, and I can mostly watch it even as a lawyer without getting too nit-picky. They get a lot of the court stuff right, and some they totally dramatize (like the length of time from the incident or crime until the trial). Hilariously, in one episode they ask someone why he does not have any bruises as if a trial would actually take place a week or so after the incident that prompted it. But, if you can overlook that, and things like the lawyers testifying when they question witnesses, it can be an enjoyable show even for those of us who know what they are taking creative license with. While I cannot say that everyone who was a fan of the first couple of seasons will automatically like this season, I think the show is still good and worth checking out.