Your basic Grisham. Except I hate Matthew McConahay.

So-so Grisham thirller.

Great movie

"Intelligent, sexy, and reliably gripping until the jury delivers its tantalising verdict."

A million times better than the first Grisham movie I saw (Rainmaker), but still nowhere near as good as the book. I think the biggest benefit this movie had was a cast of up and coming stars (Jackson and McConaughey excel). If you have read the book then you know to be ready for one of the more chilling movie beginnings (i fastfwd through it). I think the problem for me is that after you read a Grisham book it is really hard for the movie to stack up against it. Still I am happy I saw it.

Morally unsound and sensationalist.

This adaptation bundles up the author's fairy-tale articles of faith (the luck of the beginner, the ascension of the underdog, the might of right) and sets them down in a vast and volatile social arena (the racial divide, the persistence of the KKK, the most piggish assembly of white-trash bigots on screen since the heyday of Don Stroud and Anthony Zerbe), where the simple-mindedness and smugness of them go beyond minor irritations into major embarrassments.