Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Julia Roberts | ... | Darby Shaw | |
Denzel Washington | ... | Gray Grantham | |
Sam Shepard | ... | Thomas Callahan | |
John Heard | ... | Gavin Vereek | |
Tony Goldwyn | ... | Fletcher Coal | |
James Sikking | ... | FBI Director Denton Voyles (as James B. Sikking) | |
William Atherton | ... | Bob Gminski | |
Robert Culp | ... | President | |
Stanley Tucci | ... | Khamel | |
Hume Cronyn | ... | Justice Rosenberg | |
John Lithgow | ... | Smith Keen | |
Anthony Heald | ... | Marty Velmano | |
Nicholas Woodeson | ... | Stump | |
Stanley Anderson | ... | Edwin Sneller | |
John Finn | ... | Matthew Barr |
Two Supreme Court Justices have been killed. Now a college professor, who clerked for one of the two men and who is also having an affair with one of his students, is given a brief by her that states who probably wanted to see these two men dead. He then gives it to one of his friends, who works for the FBI. When the FBI director reads it, he is fascinated by it. One of the president's men who read it is afraid that if it ever got out, the president could be smeared. So he advises the president to tell the director to drop it, which he does. But later the professor and the girl were out and he was drunk and when he refused to give her the keys, she stepped out of the car. When he started it, it blew up. She then discovers that her place has been burglarized and what was taken were her computer and her disks. Obviously, her brief has someone agitated. She then turns to her boyfriend's friend at the FBI. He agrees to come meet her but before he does, someone shoots him and takes his ... Written by rcs0411@yahoo.com
JULIA ROBERTS is a damsel in distress when she writes a brief, theorizing what and who was behind the murder of two Supreme Court justices. DENZEL WASHINGTON is the investigative reporter who sees some merit in her theory and reluctantly decides to offer his help in tracking down the bad guys.
It's based on a terrific John Grisham thriller and given a well crafted script, good performances and taut direction from Alan J. Pakula. I'm not a fan of either Roherts or Washington, so for me to praise this movie shows you how suspenseful and entertaining it is as a thriller.
The overrated Julia Roberts is a huge box-office star who never once appealed to me despite her enormous popularity and Denzel Washington is a competent actor who sometimes does extra fine work--but neither one would win a popularity poll with me.
So, with that personal bias showing, I still give THE PELICAN BRIEF a respectable rating because it does what it sets out to do--it keeps you hooked until the ending after a few unexpected plot twists totally in keeping with this kind of story where the heroine is in peril because she knows too much.
Well worth a view.