7. A Time to Kill (1996)
Two despicable white racist louts rape and try to kill Tonya, a 10 year old black girl. This is in deep redneck racist Southern territory where white men routinely rape black girls and get away with it. Predictably so do Tonya's rapists and her father Carl Lee (Samuel Jackson) shoots the rapists dead in court when they are exonerated. The only non racist white man is a lawyer called Jake Brigance (Matthew McConaughey) who takes on Carl Lee's case. The case attracts much media attention. Brigance and his family receive threats as the KKK start assembling on a large scale - and their influence spreads to high up places. Ellen Roark (Sandra Bullock) turns up to help Brigance but things are escalating. He has to move his family away from the town, his house is burnt to the ground and a burning cross planted on the lawn. There is a standoff between a crowd of black people and the KKK - a black teenager kills a very high up KKK official. Roark is abducted by the Klan, tied up to a stake in her underwear and left to die. A double agent lets her go. At the trial, Brigance relates the long slow rape of a young girl to the jury and then says "now imagine she's white". In this context the act of revenge of the father would have seemed natural in the eyes of the jury. Carl Lee is found innocent. A Time To Kill is technically well made, well acted and has its heart in the right place - being firmly anti racist, but it also has its flaws. With Carl Lee's shooting of the rapists, the film ends up advocating vigilante style justice which really does the anti racism side no favours at all in how they are portrayed. Also, the KKK wouldn't walk down the street in broad day light. And would a jury really acquit Carl Lee of double murder just because they feel sorry for him? And the stripping of Sandra Bullock's character was totally gratuitous. A lame effort but what can you expect from a Grisham novel adaptation?