![]() ![]() “But since McConaughey and the film both delivered, it wasn’t a case of ‘all show and no go.’ ”Īn aspiring lawyer, McConaughey first studied film at the University of Texas at Austin. ![]() “There was the overriding feeling we manipulated people,” he said. Rob Friedman, president of worldwide advertising and publicity for Warner Bros., said he feels vindicated by the reviews. When it came to McConaughey, there was virtual unanimity: Playing opposite seasoned professionals, they said, he more than held his own. Many who found it excessively commercial and formulaic admitted to enjoying the movie despite themselves. Jackson) who murdered two rednecks who had raped his daughter. Time, the New York Times and Roger Ebert were among those who had kind words for the film-the tale of a Southern lawyer defending a man (Samuel L. ![]() “There’s no backlash yet, but a lot of people went in believing it was all Hollywood hype-saying, ‘I’m from Missouri. Lorenzo di Bonaventura, president of worldwide theatrical production for Warner Bros., agreed. Though the press viewed him as the Second Coming, there was the inherent risk of overkill.” With McConaughey, I felt like I was on a runaway train. Tom Cruise comes the closest, I suppose, since ‘Risky Business’ was his first starring role. “Bullock and Julia Roberts had been around for a while. “No one I’ve handled has struck it this big this fast,” she said. She takes no credit for the actor’s meteoric rise in fact, she says, she was fielding calls. Pat Kingsley, president of the PMK publicity agency, accepted McConaughey as a client in April after media screenings in New York and Los Angeles. “Matthew McConaughey will probably expand the audience to young females, pushing the movie, we hope, past the $100-million mark.” “Grisham movies usually draw an older audience, the over 25- who read books,” said Barry Reardon, Warner Bros. (For more details on the weekend’s box office, see Page F2.) Despite competition from the Olympics and the film’s longer running time reducing the number of screenings, it came close to the opening weekend numbers of Grisham’s “The Client,” also directed by Schumacher, which went on to gross $92 million in the domestic market. Greeted by mixed to positive reviews, “A Time to Kill” took in $14.6 million in its opening weekend, knocking “Independence Day” from the top spot for the first time since its July 2 release. Jackson and Kevin Spacey, got off to a solid start. Jake's allies are idealistic student Bullock, boozy old mentor Donald Sutherland and sleazy divorce specialist Platt that they have nothing to contribute to the plot but phoney histrionics is indicative of the fact that they don't have a case, legally speaking - everything is designed to disguise that void.The New Regency film, also starring Sandra Bullock, Samuel L. An insulting travesty of Faulkner and Harper Lee, riven with such politically correct confusion that it implicitly equates the KKK with the NAACP, this would be more insidious if it weren't altogether botched. No wonder Jake's reduced to tears - an unusual legal manoeuvre, but on this evidence, effective. The defendant's black, the crime was committed on the courthouse steps, and the judge is called Noose. An apologia for vigilantism masquerading as a liberal race-movie, it has McConaughey as small town Southern lawyer Jake Brigance, defending Jackson's Carl Lee after he shoots down the white trash who raped his daughter. Justice may be blind, but rarely have courtroom dramas presumed quite so heavily on cultural myopia as this heinous version of John Grisham's first novel. ![]()
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