Take a couple of charismatic actors at the height of their attractiveness, in this case Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington, Stick them in a film based on a best selling book by then hot thriller writer John Grisham. Add the director, Alan J. Pakula who was kind of an old style filmmaker in the best sense of the term. You end up with a watchable film that's not exactly exciting.
The plot has Julia Roberts as a second year law student who writes a legal brief which attempts to make sense of the murders of two Supreme Court justices. Improbably Julia's brief manages to figure out the motive for the killings and she has to go on the run from the killers. The only help she gets is from investigative reporter Denzel who is also trying to solve the murders of the Supreme Court justices.
The director Alan J. Pakula also wrote the screenplay and for the most part manages to keep the plot clear enough so we figure out who is doing what to whom. The Pelican Brief is a political thriller, it's set in Washington and involves members of the government covering up the crime. Pakula directs the film with a few Hitchcock like attempts at suspense but there are a lot of awfully contrived scenes and coincidences, the holes in the plot really show through after a while.
If you like watching good looking people for a couple of hours this is the film for you. Otherwise you're better off viewing something like Seven Days In May or The Manchurian Candidate. Or you can watch Pakula's better and real life thriller, All The President's Men.
The screenplay was by Alan Pakula, the running time is 141 minutes.
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