Rating: 
Summary: This is the most heartbreaking movie since the color purple
Review: This movie touched my heart in so many ways. The way I felt was indescribable. The movie was exellent and the actors were great. I could feel myself in the movie. I cried my heart out throug almost the whole thing. It was a very moving movie about black and white prejeduce.
Rating:
Summary: Very Touching
Review: I watched the movie and now am enjoying the book. I thought this movie was really powerful and touching. I think that I would have done the same thing for my daughter. At the end, I'm not going to tell all, but I cried, it was so powerful. I think this movie and book should be seen to everyone when they're old enough (of course) because it deals with racisim between blacks and whites, which has been going on for a long time. Me, being white, am very ashamed of my back ground and I think we think we are better than everyone else who is different just a little too much. Anyway, this book and movie is wonderful!
Rating:
Summary: most heartbreaking story of prejudice since the color purple
Review: I think A time To Kill is one of the most intriguing stories I have read. It shows the true struggle and prejudice of the kkk and black americans since the Colour Purple. END
Rating: 
Summary: Racism, violence, white trash, murder ("Jerry! Jerry!")
Review: "A Time to Kill" has good intentions. It stars:Matthew McConaughey as lawyer Jake Brigance Samuel L. Jackson as Carl Lee Hailey, a father who kills to avenge the rape of his little girl Kevin Spacey as the snide, sinister District Attorney Sandra Bullock as Brigance's law clerk, Ellen "Rork in Boston, but Row Ark in Mississippi" Ashley Judd as Jake Brigance's wife Oliver Platt is Jake's buddy Harry Rex Keifer Sutherland as a vengeful redneck and Donald Sutherland as eccentric, civil-rights-activist/disbarred lawyer/drunk/mentor Lucien Wilbanks With an all star cast like that, you can't go wrong, and the film, at least plot-wise, doesn't. Carl Lee Hailey's 10-year-old daughter is raped and left for dead by two white trash redneck dopeheads. Enraged, Hailey takes justice into his own hands and fatally shoots the two rapists as they leave the courthouse. Everyone in the small Mississippi town hears the news within minutes and takes sides, and Hailey hires a young ham-and-egger, Brigance, to defend him. As Brigance tries to avoid a conviction from the all-white jury, the brother of one of the rapists (played by Keifer Sutherland) gets together a couple of good ole boys to form a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. Violence erupts, protesters march and chant, death threats and burning crosses abound, everyone is covered at all times with a sheen of oily sweat, and there's even an explosion. "A Time to Kill" is like the "Jerry Springer Show," but intelligent. The dialogue, however, could use work. It seems as if a good writer and a mediocre writer banged out the script, then cut it up and shuffled it together, intermingling the really well-written scenes with some really choppy dialogue. The same goes for the acting. Jackson, Spacey, and McConaughey are excellent and convincing in their roles. Platt is charming as Jake's best friend and a sleazy divorce lawyer. However, Judd is useless and even childish in her role as a trophy wife, and Bullock, as Jake's law clerk, sounds as if she's a shy girl in a high-school play who hasn't quite memorized her lines yet. (This really irked me because in the book version, her character was headstrong, outspoken, and very smart.) I encourage anyone to rent the movie for themselves. It's definitely worth seeing, even if the writing and acting is a little off in places. The story redeems the bad acting.
Rating: 
Summary: Watch "Ghosts of Mississippi" instead
Review: The stories are pretty much exactly the same. Southern lawyer is involved in a racial case (although this time he's defending a black man instead of convicting a white one), his family suffers, the KKK is after them etc. At the end of this movie I did wonder though what exactly the moral point was. Samuel L. Jackson's character kills two men (with dozens of witnesses around to see it) yet he's found "not guilty"? It's quite clear that you feel bad for this man since the aforementioned white men raped and almost murdered his daughter but this still doesn't give him the right to take the law into his one hands...or does it (at least the directior, script writer seems to think so).
Other parts of the movie are hard to believe as well. Sandra Bullock's character pretty much wins the case herself since McConaughey is too lazy to do any significant research. McConaughey is in favor of lynching people while Bullock's a northern liberal. This doesn't stop her from working with him though (although she runs out of a diner after finding this out over lunch).
As I said, if you want to watch a decent movie in this kind of setting, check out "Ghosts of Mississippi."
Rating:
Summary: Good movie, terrible DVD
Review: Let me say first that I really like this movie. It's entertaining and I like the casting. But the DVD is horrible and beyond cheesy. I bought it to replace a VHS copy. Forget "special" features - this DVD doesn't even have STANDARD features! About 1 hour and 15 minutes into the movie, it stops and YOU HAVE TO FLIP IT OVER! You've got to be kidding me! The "scene access" is poor, too. You can't jump to scene 3 if you want to - you can only skip to specific scenes: 5, 10, 15, etc. Finally, and this is minor but only proves a point, the case is cheap. It's not encased in plastic, it's just cardboard. Save your money and don't buy this DVD.
Rating:
Summary: My review?
Review: I've seen maybe 40 minutes of To Kill A Mockingbird, and those 40 minutes were WAY better than the 2+ hours needed to view this film.
This movie basically glorifies revenge killing. That's it in a nutshell. And the "insanity" plea is so hard to get a jury to believe (ask all the women who kill their children), so you know this is straight Hollywood.
Rating: 
Summary: Martin Luther King would join KKK after watching this !!!
Review: Close your eyes and imagine have KKK doesn't oppose with violance court's decision to free Afro-American from charges of killing two white people. Now imagine how Afro-American plans and kills two white idiots and then cries to his lawyer that he mut stay away from proison so he could support his family. Is it enough ? In short, ridicilous nonsense.
Rating:
Summary: Dynamite Cast with the best Grisham Adaptation on Film
Review: What would it take to duplicate the cast of this film? Made only eight years ago I'd think today you'd break the bank putting together:
Matthew McConaughey
Sandra Bullock
Samuel L. Jackson
Kevin Spacey
Oliver Platt
Charles Dutton
Donald Sutherland
Kiefer Sutherland
Patrick McGoohan
Ashley Judd
Chris Cooper
The story is in some ways rather straightforward. Samuel Jackson's 10 year old daughter is raped and tortured by two rednecks in the opening minutes. Mercifully, the girl lives through the event and the two rednecks are arrested. Thinking that in Mississippi they're going to be acquitted "like them boys raped that girl last year" Samuel's Carl Lee Haley asks Matthew's Southern Lawyer Jake Brigance if he'd "help him out if he got into some trouble", then takes an M-16 and shoots the rednecks on the way to a court hearing, destroying Deputy Chris Cooper's leg in the process.
The rest of the movie seems pretty straight-forward, almost predictably so. Jake is tasked with defending a black man in Mississippi of murders which were committed in full sight of many people, including Jake himself and several law officers. Kiefer Sutherland, as the brother of one of the rednecks, enlists the assistance of the Klan to make sure that Carl "gets it" and to make sure that anyone attempting to help Carl is also intimidated (killed.... houses burned.... etc....) In this movie the Klan is a living, breathing entity with apparently much leeway to conduct its nefarious business.
Donald Sutherland is the alcoholic lawyer mentor of Jake - disbarred for some police violence during some political activism. Kevin Spacey is the ambitious District Attorney with a nomination for Governor in his back pocket. Charles Dutton is the black sheriff who doesn't hesitate to stand toe to toe with the Klan - the scenes where Klan members are in any way subdued are due to this strong character. Ashley Judd is Jake's pretty Mississippi Sorority-Belle wife who initially thinks that Jake accepts Carl Lee's case to "prove what a big-time lawyer" he is. When the Klan tries bombing Jake's house Ashley packs up their daughter and heads to the grandparent's house. On the first day of the case a hotshot law student comes wheeling into town, played by Sandra Bullock, wanting to make her name stamping out the death penalty.
The story is told in a linear fashion, but the performances make this compelling stuff. The NAACP come to town to provide for Carl's defense, and the scene where Carl tells them "thanks but no thanks" brings a new closeness to Carl and Jake. The movie provides for some riveting moments from Jackson as Carl and McConaughey as Jake. I've read that Mr. McConaughey delivered the summation scene in a single take. It is an astonishing piece of acting. There are several shots of extras crying, and I can't help but wonder if this wasn't an honest response to his performance.
There is a scene before the last trial scene where Carl tells Jake that he has hung onto him as his lawyer because "you one of the bad guys, Jake. I needs the jury to see me like you see me". If there is a weakness in the way that the story is told, it's that the whole movie is told the way the all-white jury would see it. The other black characters are brief and one-dimensional. Carl Lee's wife is in several scenes - looking concerned but with almost no dialogue. Since her daughter is raped and tortured and her husband is on trial, shouldn't we care as much about what SHE thinks as Jake's wife? We spend a fair amount of time watching what the Klan is doing. Shouldn't we be at least as interested in what the black community is doing?
Jake sets out to "prove a black man can get a fair trial in Mississippi". But can he prove that vigilante justice is ok even if everyone in the community knows that in race-hate-crimes in the world of this film black people can't expect fair treatment?
The movie reverberates with echoes of "To Kill a Mockingbird". Or at least it wants to. For a film of this type I can't think of a more admirable goal.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Movie, Bad DVD
Review: This movie is great. I think that this is Matthew M's greatest performance and it really shows during the closing arguements at the end of the movie.
The DVD, on the other hand, has nothing special on it except for the trailer. The movie has not been remastered and you will still see the fuzz and flicks from the original reel of film. I don't think this DVD outperforms a VHS. So--if you already have the VHS, go ahead and wait for a special edition or remastered version DVD to come out (if ever). Trust me, it is quite obvious when you watch the DVD.
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