Movie Review: A Time to Kill (1996)

Is it ok to harm someone who has committed an extremely sinful crime? Can crime be punished with more crime? What are the human limits? All of these questions are addressed in A Time to Kill. This is an adaption of a novel by John Grisham. Which means that they will have a star cast. Joel Schumaccer directed this film, and to be honest the film has some really good things and some not so good things. Let's start with the good. The acting in this film is unbelievably good. The role that to me was awesome was Kevin Spacey. He pulls off a southern accent that sounds almost as real as Forrest Gump. Plus, everyone else in the movie is just really intense and they all have good chemistry with one another. Another thing that's good? The storyline. Yeah, a young child's assault is not fun to watch, and the movie does have some really uncomfortable scenes in it. However, the case is a product of the overlying theme in the film which is racism. The story runs like this, a young black girl is assaulted by these two guys who have been drinking. Then the girls dad (Samuel L Jackson) goes after the drunk dudes and kills them on there way to court. This of course sets the stage for another legal storyline. What needs improvement? Only really one thing needs to be changed. It's the length. Here's the thing about length, most movies can use length really well as a means of telling a story. However, some movies take a short-medium sized story and stretch the movie out so they don't have to rush anything. That's the problem with this movie. It takes too long to get going. By the end of the movie, it's all just one big court case anyway, I had myself wondering when this was going to rap up. Overall, A Time to Kill is a very good, but way too long legal thriller. Three stars.