Alan Pakula’s curiously disappointing feature, The Pelican Brief, is a rather routine thriller, elevated by the star power of Denzel Washington and Julia Roberts.
Grade: C+ (** out of *****)
The movie reaffirms the belief that John Gresham’s best-selling novels are certainly more fun to read than to watch on the big screen. Earlier this year, The Firm, also a flawed film, co-starring Tom Cruise and Gene Hackman, dominated the summer’s box-office.
Regrettably, Gresham’s latest screen adaptation, which is Julia Roberts’ comeback vehicle after an absence of two years, is not better than The Firm. Not so much because of the quality of the material as for its hack direction.
Pakula, usually a meticulous craftsman, works here as a routine Hollywood director.
As a film, Pelican Brief lacks savvy, visual style and or any other distinction.
There is also a problem of credibility: Does anyone believe in a conspiracy tale revolving around Darby Shaw, a young law student who comes up with a theory of who had murdered two Supreme Court justices.
The political climate has changed considerably since the 1970s, when excellent conspiracy movies were made and embraced by the audience, including Pakula’s own 1976 All the President Men and Sydney Pollack’s Three Day of the Condors, which starred Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway.
In Pelican Brief, two Supreme Court Justices get murdered on the same night by a contract hit man. A Tulane University student (Roberts) becomes intrigued with the bizarre events. Following some research, she comes up with a brief detailing the scenario for the killings.
Roberts’ professor (Sam Shepard), who’s also her lover, glances at the brief and passes it along to his friend at the FBI (John Heard). Shortly after, the professor dies mysteriously, when his car explodes from a planted bomb intended for Roberts (they had a fight that night and she declined to go home with him).
As might be expected, the brief soon gets to the President (Robert Culp) and his chief of staff (Tony Goldwyn), and both fear it might implicate the White House.
Meanwhile, Roberts hooks up with newspaper reporter Gray Grantham (Denzel Washington), who’s already pursuing the story on his own.
The rest of the thriller is rather formulaic, containing the requisite cat-and-mouth chases, which take place in dark alleys, parking lots, chic hotels, etc.
Last month, when I interviewed Denzel Washington for his work in the AIDS movie, Philadelphia, he refused to discuss his role in Pelican Brief, though he gives a most honorable performance.
“Let’s say,” the talented star said, “that for three weeks they filmed the scene in which Julia Roberts and I try to escape from a parking lot.”
That’s a pretty accurate summary of the entire film.
While this is a popcorn thrill ride, Roberts’ role as the law student Darby Shaw brings some depth to a feature that, unfortunately, became the last film that Pakula both wrote and directed before his death in 1998.
