The Pelican Brief (1993)

This movie is so topical I can hardly believe it. The director of the FBI sits with the president in the oval office and says, "So you want me to back off the investigation for a while?" Could be Comey and Trump. The similarities are chilling. I guess nothing ever changes.If you'd like to know what's going on behind the scenes as Trump, Sessions, Comey, Rosenstein, Mueller, and the comatose GOP Congress debates Trump's involvement as a Russian spy, watch this movie. It will put meat on the bones that you see every day in the news. Denzel and Julie are terrific, and the script is wonderful. I don't know who all these people are who call this movie boring, they must be TRANSFORMERS fans or something. Not a boring minute for a mature movie goer. Every bit as good as ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN.

This film suffers from over length. Also the ending feels like it was added on. It seems like a post production re-shoot. In this film Julia Roberts plays a legal student. The murder of two supreme court justices have prompt her into seeing if she can figure out the reasons and motives for their murders. She then writes about her finding called "The Pelican Brief". After she presents this to 2 people they are murdered. She then decides to take off and contacts a reporter hoping she can find a way to save her own life. Now many scenes in this film should of been edited down or the film should of had a re-write before production began. There is several scenes in the first 1/2 that could have been edited down or been presented with a little more suspense. Julia Roberts and Denzel are fine but the movie is too long!

This is a solid movie. Most of the story holds together quite well, being plausible which is very important to me. There are just a few places in the story that I wish the director, Alan J. Pakula, had chosen to make a bit more believable. I won't expose those scenes because I wish to write a spoiler free review this time.I look for movies that I can believe in, written well, acted well, and most important directed well. This passes all of those tests. You can't fail with the likes of Robert Culp, although he plays a bit of a wuss here, or Julia Roberts who was well cast.Backing up the strong crew is a key character played by Denzel Washington, Tony Goldwyn, and several more big name actors. I can't imagine how they were able to attract so many stars.Alan J. Pakula has a long list of good movie credits as director. He did a great job on this story, it had some twists and turns so would have been easy to screw up.

I have to tell and affirm that movies made in the 90's have more substance and intelligence than recent ones. The movie is centered on intelligent discussion, so you need to concentrate to follow the plot. Though I haven't read John Grisham at all, I love the movies based on his novels. So far have watched A Time to Kill, Runaway Jury, The Firm, The Client; and I think the legal elements make the thriller more exciting.Being a fan of Denzel Washington, he aptly fits into the role and love the way he moves confidently, with practiced ease. Julia Roberts looks pretty, and gives a commendable performance as the scared legal student on the run. When she remarks her brief was 'ludicrous', I never expected it to form the crux of the plot (though the movie was titled about a brief), I mean what can a law student discover that the FBI cannot? But that's the way John Grisham thinks, and it's interesting.I was a bit disappointed that there were no court scenes as I love courtroom dramas. Nevertheless, the movie keeps you at the edge of the seat, as you keep trying to find out who were the perpetrators of the murder. I found myself wanting to know more even after Roberts reveals the content of her brief to Washington, and was quite satisfied in the end.