The Client (1994)

Two boys witness a man trying to commit suicide,, one of them is brave enough to pull the hose with the rag stuffed in the exhaust out of the tailpipe. unfortunately for him he get's caught , and our lawyer and the child have a conversation,, the little brother tries to save his big brother and things don't go so well , long story short,, boys escape and the lawyer eventually does kill himself,, the older brother found out something from the lawyer that he shouldn't have and has to hire an attorney because, he is being tracked by the FBI, and the MOB. Tommy Lee Jones,, Susan Sarandon, do a wonderful job in the movie,, Will Patton plays a police officer who is really dislikeable. this is a pretty darn good movie taken from a John Grisham novel. beautifully acted,, lot's of great pacing, there isn't anything that I didn't like about the film.

I finally sat down to watch this. I'm not big into 'lawyer' movies, and this plot never made much sense, but it got three stars on the tivo, so I said "sure, why not". First off, to be clear, I never read the book, nor have I read any Grisham novels.I never got the plot. Kid somehow finds out 'important' information, but won't tell anyone. Sounds, um, reasonable, sure. He then races to find a lawyer (and he doesn't trust lawyers) in order not to say anything. And I'm still not sure what the lawyer did for him, except get his family out of Memphis (which the DA should have been doing immediately).I couldn't stand ANY of the characters! Mark Sway just swore a lot and didn't have a clue what he was doing (and some people call him the 'hero'!). Not sure what Reggie the lawyer was trying to protect the boy from, for she seemed far more concerned over the law then the bad guys.The Barry 'the Blade' character made me wonder whether he was some guy who was posing as a mob killer, and thought that's how they dressed and acted. For he seemed as far from realistic as one could get. The cop that finds Mark has got to be one of the worst cops in Memphis. Kid finds body, you think he's hiding something. So the obvious way to get him to talk? Of course, try to scare it out of him! It always works!The federal agents seemed to be about as inept as possible. The DA made me wonder why anyone would pay attention to him, let alone the media. The family is in the hospital under police watch, but there's a detective down the hall watching the room? How does that happen? Speaking of the media, how about the supposed newspaper reporter. Taking pictures of the kid in the hospital room? Really? And the newspaper not only gave out his name, but printed a big picture of him?Finally, this is all about 'finding the body of the senator', but they never explained WHY that was important. A body is just a body. Sure, it can show the senator is truly dead. But not once did we hear "If we can find the body, we're sure to find proof that the blade did this!". Let alone, why would they think they could find it? Had they ever found any of his other victims? And did those not help send him to jail?Oh, and I didn't even get to the part where they go to NO to find the body for some insane reason. Anyone who thinks this is even a good movie needs to watch some good movies. Watch the Shawshank Redemption, and then watch this, and you'll see what I mean.

first off I want to say even for all the plot holes in this movie it is still an OK movie to watch. But I just could not find it as enjoyable as I could when the kid you have to root for is a snot nosed little brat you want to smack the crap out of yourself. Saying that though even for when this movie was made the outstanding mistakes made by the legal part of this movie is beyond me. First off you have a cop intimidating a child witness which makes no sense, second when Mark was first brought in to talk to the lawyers they never would have anyway interviewed him without his mother because any defense lawyer would then tear apart the kids statement as soon as he took the stand and have all evidence thrown out of court, thirdly this is all based on what the lawyer might have told the kid which considering there is no proof they could ever possibly know what was actually talked about in the car all, all mark had to say was the guy just talked about wanting to die and the FBI could never prove otherwise and everything would once again be thrown out, fourth and finally even if Mark admitted that the lawyer told him something the FBI couldn't do anything with it because it is hearsay and also it broke client confidentiality as soon as the lawyer told Mark so it in no way could have been used as evidence and any evidence gotten from it would become invalid and not usable in a court of law. Also at one point in the movie the FBI hears on a wire tap the guy they want pretty much admitting to the crime and to wanting to whack the kid which is more than enough evidence they need to arrest him. OK movie but just full of to many plot holes to make any real sense.

Thriller about a young boy Mark Sway (Renfro) who witnesses the suicide of a man (Olkewicz) with ties to the mob. The man decides to spill certain details about the mob before his suicide, sucking Mark into the crossfire of a mob murder. The kid must hire his own lawyer (Sarandon) to protect his rights, since district attorney (Tommy Lee Jones) is fixated on taking down the mob and won't stop at anything--even willing to put the safety of Mark at risk. Very '90s, very Schumacher, and very Grisham. Hard to know what to feel for Tommy Lee Jones' character, and it's even more confusing as to why Romey didn't just blow his brains out sooner with the gun right there in the car! A lot of holes at the beginning of the film, and the plot neither fills them or makes up for them. You won't gain anything from watching this so-called "mystery-thriller". Am I really supposed to take LaPaglia serious?** (out of four)