`A Time To Kill': Calling Out The Vigilantes

----------------------------------------------------------------- Movie review

XX "A Time to Kill," with Matthew McConaughey, Samuel L. Jackson, Sandra Bullock, Kevin Spacey, Oliver Platt, Donald Sutherland, Kiefer Sutherland. Directed by Joel Schumacher, from a script by Akiva Goldsman, based on the John Grisham novel. Alderwood, Bella Bottega 7, City Centre, Crossroads, Everett Mall 1-3, Everett Mall 4-10, Factoria, Gateway, Guild 45th, Issaquah 9, Kent 6, Kirkland Parkplace, Mountlake 9, Oak Tree, Renton Village, Valley drive-in. "R" - Restricted because of language, violence. -----------------------------------------------------------------

Using the tortured logic of this lurid vigilante thriller, you could conclude that Jack Ruby did the right thing when he murdered Lee Harvey Oswald in public view in November 1963.

The central crime in this adaptation of John Grisham's first novel is shockingly similar. Two men are gunned to death in full view of reporters and police, and the rest of the movie argues that the man who obviously did it deserves to be acquitted. Directed by Joel Schumacher in the overheated style of his own execrable "Falling Down," the picture never lets legalities interfere when rabble-rousing emotion can rule.

It also uses a storyline remarkably similar to "To Kill a Mockingbird" in order to sway the audience. An idealistic white Mississippi lawyer with an adorable child defends the killer, who is black. The lawyer and his child are harassed by racists and made to feel unwanted in their home. The black community resigns itself to the fact that a black man cannot get a fair trial in their state. In the end, we're asked to overlook a killing that apparently does more good than harm.

But Schumacher's movie goes far beyond the restrained and carefully written "Mockingbird," wildly overstating its case. The lawyer's house is burned down, he gets shot at by a hateful bigot, and his wife, child and secretary leave him because they can't take the harassment. His potential new romantic partner, an annoying self-proclaimed "genius" who opposes the death penalty, abandons her liberal values and turns vigilante when she's kidnapped and abused.

The police officer who was accidentally crippled during the shooting proclaims in court that he doesn't blame the man who did it; in his place, he would also have taken the law into his own hands. And a revived Ku Klux Klan starts burning crosses, staging riots in broad daylight and turning up in public with hoods optional. Their leader is played by none other than Kiefer Sutherland, using the same flashy sneer that made audiences want to lynch him earlier this year in "Eye For an Eye."

Pompously stretched to 145 minutes, the movie would be unwatchable without the star-making performance of Matthew McConaughey as the persecuted lawyer. Even when he goes over the top, as Schumacher allows him to do in his shameless final courtroom arguments, McConaughey is riveting. He will make better movies; indeed, he already has. Check out John Sayles' "Lone Star," still playing at the Guild 45th.

The supporting cast is also easy to watch. Chris Cooper, who plays McConaughey's son in "Lone Star," brings conviction to the role of the crippled police officer. Brenda Fricker, as the tormented secretary, makes her few minutes count and Samuel L. Jackson does his best to make a case for the killer, an anguished father avenging his raped child.

Ashley Judd is less successful as McConaughey's wife, who is little more than a plot device; the same goes for Donald Sutherland as McConaughey's boozing mentor and Kevin Spacey as the devilishly professional prosecutor, who dares to suggest that vigilante justice is illegal. Sandra Bullock can do nothing to lessen the irritation factor of McConaughey's new helper and possible love interest.

Schumacher and his screen-writer, Akiva Goldsman, previously collaborated on a tolerable movie of Grisham's "The Client," which earned Susan Sarandon an Oscar nomination. In retrospect, you have to wonder how much Sarandon had to do with that film's relative restraint.