• A massive hit in the summer of 1993—it puts Pollack back in the thriller genre (Three Days of the Condor) and certainly carries your attention for the full 154-minute running time
  • It has to be viewed a bit of a disappointment with the talent involved. The source material is Grisham, Pollack as I mentioned at the helm, the cast is ridiculous: Tom Cruise and Gene Hackman leading the way- to Hal Holbrook, Holly Hunter (an Oscar nom in about 5 minutes of screen time), Jeanne Tripplehorn, bald Ed Harris, Wilford Brimley, Gary Busey (chewing every second of his scene), Paul Sorvino here coming back in a sort of Goodfellas cameo, David Strathairn—and that’s just in front of the camera. Robert Towne worked on the script- it was shot by John Seale (Fury Road, English Patient) the big bold piano probably-steals-the-headline piano score is from David Grusin (Tootsie)
  • Cruise and director Pollack would co-star a few years later in Kubrick Eyes Wide Shut
  • Sort of a cult thriller film—the law firm is all white, all male and all married—Pollack does a good job incorporating the locales of Memphis, the shot of Cruise and Holbrook in from of the Peabody hotel, ribs and jazz

it puts Pollack back in the thriller genre like Three Days of the Condor

  • You have Lyle Lovett and Jimmy Buffett used well in the score
  • sort of a Al Capone tax evasion-like loophole in the script with the over-billing
  • Running Tom Cruise—strange he’d play the cocky young lawyer in back to back years with A Few Good Men in 1992 but this isn’t a courtroom drama. This is a moral drama with a conspiracy thriller edge. Hackman’s character is a strange one—seems to be having most of the fun and then gets some of the big scenes towards the end
  • Recommend but not in the top 10 of 1993—closer the to archives fringe– the achievement is in the acting, writing, score–and none (either together or combined) translate to a top 10 of the year quality—the last archiveable film from Pollack at this point