The Chamber (1996)

“If you spend half as much time trying to be a lawyer instead of trying to be Dick Tracy, I might not be dead in five days.” – Sam

Number of Times Seen – 1 (21 Jun 2017)

Brief Synopsis – A young attorney takes on the case of a convicted murderer about to be executed by the state for his crime.

My Take on it – I have always been a fan of John Grisham’s work and I recall trying to read this book after finishing A Time to Kill, The Firm and The Pelican Brief only to be bored out of my mind with how this particular story was being told.

For that reason, I’ve avoided watching this film for the past 20+ years but decided that since it stars Chris O’Donnell and Gene Hackman that I would give a try now.

Boy was I right to stay away from this one because despite the talented actors selected for these roles, the story here too was totally uninteresting and extremely boring.

The casting decision of Faye Dunaway as Hackman’s daughter is a strange one since she is only about a decade younger than him.

As I stated earlier, I never got thru most of the book so I can’t really say whether I think the book was any better than what they made here.

Personally, there wasn’t really anything I could say that would make this film worth the time and effort to watch.

There are many more Grisham novels that were adapted so much better than this one and they all have interesting plots (mostly).

Bottom Line – Surprisingly, despite being headlined by great actors, the story is poorly written and just isn’t very interesting to watch.  The casting of Dunaway as Hackman’s daughter is quite funny since they are extremely close in age.  Having not been able to get thru this book, I can’t say whether the book is any better than the film but I personally couldn’t find much of this story interesting at all.  THere are so many other better adapted Grisham novels.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – In a 2006 BBC TV Culture Show interview, John Grisham stated that this was the adaptation of his work he liked least. (From IMDB)

Rating – Razzie Worthy

_______________________________________

Check out my *updated* movie stats here

To see my reviews of Oscar Winning Performances check out this link

To see my reviews of all Oscar Best Picture Winners click here (now complete)

Here is a link to my movie index A-Z