Film Review: The Pelican Brief (1993)

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(source: tmdb.org)

Some of the best films in the career of American director Alan J. Pakula were political conspiracy thrillers made in 1970s, decade marked by American’s deep disappointment with government following assassinations, Vietnam fiasco and Watergate scandals. Pakula dealt with the same genre roughly two decades later with The Pelican Brief, adaptation of best-selling novel by John Grisham, which would become his penultimate film.

The plot begins when Khamel (played by Stanley Tucci), one of the world’s top professional assassins, kills two US Supreme Court Justices – an old liberal Rosenberg (played by Hume Cronyn) and young conservative Jensen (played by Ralph Cosham). Nation is shocked and even more baffled by apparent lacked of motive because both men were ideologically opposed. Darby Shaw (played by Julia Roberts), Tulane University law student, has, however, found relatively obscure case in which Rosenberg and Jensen were likely to find common ground and deliver ruling contrary to one of the parties, and that party is most likely behind the killings. She present her idea to her lover, Professor Thomas Callahan (played by Sam Shepard) who, although sceptical, later forwards her memorandum to his old friend Gavin Verheek (played by John Heard). Darby knows that her theory is true when she barely survives bombing that took Callahan’s life. She must go into hiding, evade assassins and find some way to prove the claims from her document and share it with public. In the meantime, “Pelican Brief” has created problems for President (played by Robert Culp) and his chief of staff Fletcher Coal (played by Tony Goldwyn) because its publication could doom President’s re-election, so President asks FBI Director Denton Voyles (played by James Sikking) not to investigate it. Gray Grantham (played by Denzel Washington), investigative reporter for Washington Herald, on the other hand, wants to pursue the story and get contacted by Darby Shaw, unaware that his life, like hers, would be in danger.

The Pelican Brief, despite being political conspiracy thriller, is very different from Pakula’s 1970s work. Main reason could be found in different political atmosphere in which dirty shenanigans in Washington D.C. after years of Reagan and Bush Senior were seen more like a fact of life than scandalous anomaly by Boomers still shell-shocked over JFK assassination. Agendas became different and this could be seen in both the novel and the film where the plot and some of its details revolve around environmentalism and gay rights – issues that would become the most important for American leftists and liberals in Clinton’s era and afterwards. But, cheap politics wasn’t Pakula’s main concern. He, like dedicated Hollywood professional, more or less faithfully adapted Grisham’s populist novel in which single David with intelligence and ingenuity triumphs over Goliaths from corrupt government and corporate world. And that, of course, meant that The Pelican Brief had to include happy end and, as such, become more pleasant experience for general public and in line with Hollywood conventions.

Pandering to conventions also influenced casting and meant that the character of Darby Shaw could have been played only by the greatest Hollywood star at the time. Julia Roberts, to her credit, did solid job with relatively underwritten role of a character that actually doesn’t appear in the film that often, although this is mostly due to small army of character actors who play supporting characters in numbers necessary for relatively complicated story. Denzel Washington is also good, although he too appears relatively little in the film and partners with Roberts only late in the film. Roberts’ most important contribution to the film actually happened off screen, when he talked Pakula into removing any romance between Darby Shaw and Grantham from the script (although such content existed in the novel). The romance would have made film more complicated and unrealistic, especially considering that Darby Shaw was still supposed to be affected by tragic loss of her lover.

Pakula as director did a good job, helped by large budget and adequate music score by James Horner. His style is conventional but disciplined and very effective in the first part of the film, where he allows audience to pick up various initially confusing plot strands into coherent whole. It is only in the second half, when chases and last-second escapes make his more Hollywood, that the film becomes little less interesting because of predictable plot resolution. Few deus ex machina details make The Pelican Brief only unnecessary confusing and make it overlong. However, even with its flaws and some details that make it look little bit dated, this is a solid genre piece that could be recommended even to the audience that doesn’t care much about John Grisham or its stellar cast.

RATING: 6/10 (++)