Wuchak RELEASED IN 1993 and directed by Alan J. Pakula from John Grisham's novel, "The Pelican Brief" is a political drama/thriller about a law student (Julia Roberts) who researches the murders of two supreme court justices and shares her theory with her college professor (Sam Shepard) who, in turn, gives it to an FBI friend on a lark. The brief hits a nerve because people start dying one-by-one. Denzel Washington plays a DC reporter who teams-up with the student while Robert Culp appears as the president. While I prefer "The Firm" (1993), which was also written by Grisham, this one is along the same lines, albeit with a totally different story (naturally). "Pelican" has more action, but the plot/characters aren't quite as interesting IMHO. Still, if you liked one, you'll probably appreciate the other. THE MOVIE RUNS 2 hours, 21 minutes and was shot in New Orleans and Washington DC/Maryland. ADDITIONAL CAST: John Heard plays an FBI agent, Stanley Tucci a hitman and John Lithgow an editor.GRADE: B/B-

Hitchcoc The foundation for this movie is the assassination of a couple of disparate Supreme Court justices. Their murders are on the minds of everyone in the country. A noted terrorist is involved in all of this and a character named Darby, played by Julia Roberts, sets out to find the evidence to discover the killer. That's all well and good. But what happens now is a series of murders and cover-ups and disappearances that make one need a scorecard to follow. I love more sophisticated drama and this is certainly one, but soon the President is involved. There is some land in Louisiana that is at the center of a lot of this, but because a rare breed of pelican is in danger, it becomes difficult. Even when the film is over, we don't really have it clear in our minds how things are going to play out. Some issues are settled but what's next. Roberts and Denzel Washington are quite good.

Alan Caras I like the movie better now than when first released. I think the weakness of the movie is due to the weakness in setting the scene, and the manner of telling the tale. The director blew it.Roberts and Washington salvage the director's ham handed story telling, and this is an excellent ensemble cast.I would have preferred the story be told more directly, and the plotting, planning and execution of the assassinations be revealed. Instead of a mystery, I think the story is better told as a good old fashioned detective story. The director could have used some of the old Phillip Marlow or Sam Spade series as models.

jimbo-53-186511 The Pelican Brief begins with 2 judges being killed in suspicious circumstances. Aspiring law student Darby Shaw (Julia Roberts) has her own theory of why these particular judges were killed and she believes that the killings are politically motivated. Darby decides to write down her theory of what she believes has happened in a document that she calls 'The Pelican Brief' . This is initially done as a sort of 'assignment'. However, when news of the existence of the Pelican Brief gets out, those that are responsible for the killings do everything in their power to get their hands on this document putting Darby and everyone else around her in danger.I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this film as I hadn't read the John Grisham novel upon which this film is based on prior to seeing it. One thing I did, at least expect, was an exciting and fast paced legal and political thriller. The problem with this film is that it moved at a snail's pace and for me was just far too 'talky'. There were good moments in the film and at times it was quite exciting, but it was uneven and felt far longer and far more drawn out than was necessary.As well as being somewhat dull at times, the screenplay didn't make sense at times - I'm still not sure how Julia Roberts knew that the guy in the lift was going to try and kill her (it's possible I might have missed something there as I'll admit that my mind was wandering from time to time due to how bored I was getting with the film). There is also a scene where Darby makes a phone call to Gavin Vereek (John Heard) and asks him to meet her - she's never met him before so she asks him to wear a long sleeve shirt and red cap and asks him how tall he was (this was to make sure that she ends up speaking to the right person). Vereek ends up getting killed and the killer had bugged his phone and recorded the conversation. As a result, he assumes the identity of Vereek in order to kill Darby. I was OK with all of this, but what made me laugh was when he started to put all the clothes on in Vereek's hotel room. OK fair enough, a long sleeve shirt is a fairly generic item of clothing, but a red cap? What the odds of someone having one of those? It just felt a little contrived and a little bit too convenient.The performances from the actors do save the film somewhat; Julia Roberts was particularly good in her respective role. Denzel Washington stars as newspaper reporter Gray Grantham and he helps Darby with her investigations and it is he that ultimately publishes the article which exposes the 'truth' behind the conspiracy. Washington is good in his respective role and his charisma alone is enough in this film.What really let the Pelican Brief down was its dull screenplay; it wasn't particularly exciting or suspenseful and there weren't really any great plot twists. Even the ending felt a little bit anti-climatic. I was expecting a tension fuelled final court scene like we've seen in previous legal thrillers such as A Few Good Men or more recently in The Lincoln Lawyer. The final 30 minutes were pretty good and it's a shame that the rest of the film wasn't as enjoyable. Perhaps part of the problem is that I went in with high expectations - I usually enjoy legal thrillers as they are generally exciting and interesting, but I didn't get that feeling when watching this film. I found large parts of the film to be dull and I also felt that it was far too long. It's not an awful film, but there are far better legal thrillers out there.