Run Of The Mill Legal Thriller Made By Some Excellent Casting And Performances (The Client (DVD))

Name: wampyrii

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Product:	The Client (DVD)
Date:	27/07/02 (70 review reads)
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I'm not a fan of John Grisham novels, I've read a few until I realised they were pretty much the same thing rehashed over and over, but sadly, or not depending upon your viewpoint, they do translate very easily into everything Hollywood requires from it's legal thrillers - lots of action, not much in the way of originality and the cinematic equivalent of a good page-turner. They also seem to attract some of Hollywood's finest and with Tommy Lee Jones and Susan Sarandon taking up the lead adult roles here and Joel Schumacher(OK, 'finest' is a little tenuous there, but he does a few good ones!) planting himself in the director's chair, 1994's "The Client" is no exception.

Championing the underdog once more, Grisham's "The Client" focuses upon Mark Sway(Brad Renfro), a kid who finds himself embroiled in a murder case after turning up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Mark witnesses a Mob lawyer (Walter Olkewicz) attempting suicide up in the woods and intervenes, finding himself on the receiving end of the kind of inside information about the Mob that promises you a long sleep with the fishes before the guy blows his own brains out. Dead men don't talk, but they may just have passed on what they know about the whereabouts of a missing senator's body to the kid who witnessed his death and unfortunately for Mark, both the Mob and hotshot prosecuting lawyer Roy Foltrigg (Tommy Lee Jones) righty ascribe to such beliefs. Foltrigg wants Mark to take the stand to pry the information out of him under oath, but Mark knows that the Mob will kill him and his family if he says anything and worse still, hitman Anthony LaPaglia is on his tail anyway to silence him just in case. In way over his head, Mark hires rooky attorney and recovering alcoholic Reggie Love(Susan Sarandon) to take up his case for the princely sum of one dollar to try to save his skinny butt...


The Client features an impecca
ble cast, right down to the little guys who make only the briefest of appearances. The main player here is Brad Renfro in hs first movie appearance shortly after being discovered at 12 by director Joel Schumacher. Renfro shows here why he was considered by many to have the potential to be one of Hollywood's stars of the future with an excellent performance - although, sadly it looks like his hellraising activities are more likely to leave him with a life behind bars (where you'll find him again right now incidentally) rather than in front of the camera. 'Kidz on kamera' always seem to be somewhat hit and miss, but Renfro here is utterly convincing. Sarandon as his attorney is equally impressive with another solid performance (and a third Oscar nomination in a row I believe), but star of the show is, as is usually the case, the superb Tommy Lee Jones, who shows flashes of brilliance with his one minute supremely charismatic, the next hideously insincere performance. Jones is a shark in a sharp suit and when he flashes that insincere smile you'll be forgiven for seeing razorblades instead of pearly whites. A little more of him would have been great, but we focus mainly on Renfro and Sarandon. LaPaglia too is every bit the ruthless hitman and although brief, Walter Olkewicz's maniacal, over-the-top performance as the suicidal lawyer provides a superb edge-of-your set start to the movie.

The Client is certainly an improvement over the two Grisham adaptations which proceded it, "The Pelican Brief" and "The Firm", but it still features a pulpy, page-turned of a plot, full of some of the most ludicrous contrivances and wide, gaping logical holes. We take 2 hours to get to a conclusion which could just as easily have been reached within the first 15 if Mark had just gone straight to the police for instance and one questions what the hell kind of lawyers wouldn't even think of something as simple as "tell all"
; and "get on the witness protection program" as a better solution than jail breaks and running from mob hitmen! There's also a fair few too many times when coincidence is used as a direct replacement for more plausible plot development and a few scenes which are just pure Hollywood. It's all quite straight forward, brain-on-hold stuff, made by some great performances and the few times it veers away from the central theme by bringing in such things as Mark's past with his abusive alcoholic father and Sarandon's history of alcoholism resulting in her children being taken into care, it's handling of these side issues is at best cursorary and is never really explored - it's basically an easy means of developing a character somewhat speedily and dropped from the movie as soon as Schumacher thinks he has achieved his ends.

It's certainly not the most intelligently executed thriller, but it moves along at a reasonably brisk pace and should certainly offer enough tense and exciting moments to hold the attention of most viewers. "The Client" doesn't have the kind of plot, nor the kind of twists and turns which leave you concentrating really hard so as not to lose track of what is going on as is often the case with these legal things and Sarandon's constant gaining of the upper-hand in the arguably male dominated worlds of the courtroom, FBI etc. will undoubtedly have the feminists clapping their hands with glee as well. All things considered, it's worth checking out if you like this kind of thing and much better than the two adaptations which preceeded it, although "A Time To Kill" is still my favourite Grisham adaptation.

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