''The Pelican Brief'' is a 1993 American
legal thriller film based on
the 1992 novel by
John Grisham
John Ray Grisham Jr. (; born February 8, 1955 in Jonesboro, Arkansas) is an American novelist, lawyer and former member of the 7th district of the Mississippi House of Representatives, known for his popular legal thrillers. According to the Ame ...
. Directed by
Alan J. Pakula
Alan Jay Pakula (; April 7, 1928 – November 19, 1998) was an American film director, writer and producer. He was nominated for three Academy Awards: Academy Award for Best Picture, Best Picture for ''To Kill a Mockingbird (film), To Kill a Moc ...
, the film stars
Julia Roberts
Julia Fiona Roberts (born October 28, 1967) is an American actress. Known for her leading roles in films encompassing a variety of genres, she has received multiple accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and thr ...
in the role of young law student Darby Shaw and
Denzel Washington as ''Washington Herald'' reporter Gray Grantham. The film, which features music composed by
James Horner
James Roy Horner (August 14, 1953 – June 22, 2015) was an American composer. He was known for the integration of choral and electronic elements, and for his frequent use of motifs associated with Celtic music.
Horner's first film score was in ...
, was the last film that featured Pakula as both writer and director before his death.
Plot
After an assassin named Khamel kills two
Supreme Court justices
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest-ranking judicial body in the United States. Its membership, as set by the Judiciary Act of 1869, consists of the chief justice of the United States and eight associate justices, any six of ...
, Jensen and Rosenberg,
Tulane University
Tulane University, officially the Tulane University of Louisiana, is a private university, private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by seven young medical doctors, it turned into ...
law student Darby Shaw writes a
legal brief
A brief (Old French from Latin "''brevis''", short) is a written legal document used in various legal adversarial systems that is presented to a court arguing why one party to a particular case should prevail.
In England and Wales (and other Comm ...
detailing her theory on why they were killed. She gives the brief to her law professor and lover Thomas Callahan, a former clerk of Rosenberg's, who in turn gives a copy to his good friend Gavin Verheek, special counsel to the Director of the
FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...
. Soon after, a
car bomb
A car bomb, bus bomb, lorry bomb, or truck bomb, also known as a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED), is an improvised explosive device designed to be detonated in an automobile or other vehicles.
Car bombs can be roughly divided ...
kills Callahan, but Darby avoids the same fate, because the drunk Callahan refused to let Darby drive his car. Now realizing that her brief was accurate, she goes into hiding and reaches out to Verheek for assistance.
An informant calling himself Garcia contacts ''Washington Herald'' reporter Gray Grantham with information about the assassinations, but disappears. Darby also contacts Grantham, who verifies her information as accurate. Darby's computer, disks, and files disappear from her home. She is attacked at a hotel where she's hiding. She escapes the attack unharmed, but scared. She contacts and agrees to meet Verheek, but Khamel kills Verheek and impersonates him at the meet. Before Khamel can kill Darby, an unknown person shoots and kills him.
Darby agrees to meet Grantham in New York City, where she shares the theory expressed in her brief: the assassinations were done for oil tycoon Victor Mattiece, who intends to exploit the oil he found beneath Louisiana marshland that is habitat for an endangered sub-species of
brown pelican
The brown pelican (''Pelecanus occidentalis'') is a bird of the pelican family, Pelecanidae, one of three species found in the Americas and one of two that feed by diving into water. It is found on the Atlantic Coast from New Jersey to the mout ...
s. A court appeal to deny Mattiece the drilling rights is expected to reach the Supreme Court. Darby has surmised that Mattiece, hoping to turn the case in his favor, is behind the justices' murders; these two justices differ in their opinions on everything except protecting the environment. As a generous contributor to the President, Mattiece expects that he would appoint justices that favor oil and gas exploitation over environmental issues while the next President may not do so. When Grantham tells her about Garcia, they discover that the man is Curtis Morgan, a lawyer in the oil and gas division at the
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
law firm of White & Blazevich.
Darby visits the firm, pretending to have an appointment with Morgan, and is told that he had been killed in a mugging. Suspecting that his murder was related to the incriminating information, she and Grantham visit his widow, who eventually gives them a key to a safe deposit box. Darby visits the bank to retrieve the contents of the box. After barely escaping death via car bomb, they reach the ''Washington Herald'' building, where they review the documents and a videotape recovered from Morgan's box. The tape corroborates Darby's theory, as Morgan's documents verify that Mattiece ordered the Justices to be assassinated. With this evidence, Grantham writes his story. He gives the FBI a chance to comment and FBI Director Voyles confirms that Darby's "Pelican Brief" was delivered to the White House. He reveals the President ordered the FBI to "back off," and that the CIA is investigating Mattiece, with one of them killing Khamel to save Darby's life. A plane that the FBI arranges for Darby flies her away to safety under the
witness protection program
Witness protection is security provided to a threatened person providing testimonial evidence to the justice system, including defendants and other clients, before, during, and after a trial, usually by police. While a witness may only require p ...
.
Sometime later, Darby is watching a TV interview of Grantham where it is revealed that Mattiece and four of his aides and lawyers have been indicted, the President's chief of staff Fletcher Coal has resigned, and the President (who received $4.2million in contributions from Mattiece) is unlikely to run for reelection. Grantham deflects speculation that Darby is fictional, but does agree that she is "almost" too good to be true, causing Darby to smile.
Cast
*
Julia Roberts
Julia Fiona Roberts (born October 28, 1967) is an American actress. Known for her leading roles in films encompassing a variety of genres, she has received multiple accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and thr ...
as Darby Shaw
*
Denzel Washington as Gray Grantham
*
Sam Shepard
Samuel Shepard Rogers III (November 5, 1943 – July 27, 2017) was an American actor, playwright, author, screenwriter, and director whose career spanned half a century. He won 10 Obie Awards for writing and directing, the most by any write ...
as Thomas Callahan
*
John Heard as Gavin Verheek
*
Tony Goldwyn
Anthony Howard Goldwyn (born May 20, 1960) is an American actor, singer, producer, director, and political activist. He made his debut appearing as Darren in the slasher film '' Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives'' (1986), and had his breakthr ...
as Fletcher Coal
*
James Sikking
James Barrie Sikking (born March 5, 1934) is a former American actor, most known for his role as Lt. Howard Hunter on the 1980s TV series ''Hill Street Blues''.
Early years
Sikking was born in Los Angeles on March 5, 1934 to Andy and Sue (né ...
as FBI Director Denton Voyles
*
John Finn
John Joseph Finn (born September 30, 1952) is an American character actor known as one of the leads of the television programs ''Cold Case'' and ''EZ Streets''. Finn has also had supporting roles in the films '' The Hunted'' (2003), '' Analyze T ...
as Matthew Barr
*
William Atherton
William Atherton Knight (born July 30, 1947) is an American actor, best known for portraying Richard Thornburg in '' Die Hard'' and its sequel and Walter Peck in ''Ghostbusters''.
Early life
Atherton was born in Orange, Connecticut, the son ...
as Bob Gminski
*
Robert Culp
Robert Martin Culp (August 16, 1930 – March 24, 2010) was an American actor widely known for his work in television. Culp earned an international reputation for his role as Kelly Robinson on ''I Spy'' (1965–1968), the espionage television se ...
as The President
*
Stanley Tucci
Stanley Tucci Jr. ( ; born November 11, 1960) is an American actor and filmmaker. Involved in acting from a young age, he made his film debut in John Huston's '' Prizzi's Honor'' (1985), and continued to play a variety of supporting roles in fil ...
as Khamel
*
Hume Cronyn
Hume Blake Cronyn Jr. OC (July 18, 1911 – June 15, 2003) was a Canadian-American actor and writer.
Early life
Cronyn, one of five children, was born in London, Ontario, Canada. His father, Hume Blake Cronyn, Sr., was a businessman and ...
as Justice Rosenberg
*
John Lithgow as Smith Keen
*
Anthony Heald
Philip Anthony Mair Heald (born August 25, 1944) is an American character actor known for portraying Hannibal Lecter's jailer, Dr. Frederick Chilton, in '' The Silence of the Lambs'' and '' Red Dragon'', and for playing assistant principal Sco ...
as Marty Velmano
*
Cynthia Nixon
Cynthia Ellen Nixon (born April 9, 1966) is an American actress, activist, and theater director. For her portrayal of Miranda Hobbes in the HBO series ''Sex and the City'' (1998–2004), she won the 2004 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supp ...
as Alice Stark
*
Jake Weber
Jake T. Weber (born 12 March 1963) is an English actor, known in film for his role as Michael in '' Dawn of the Dead'' and for his role as Drew in '' Meet Joe Black''. On television, he is best-known for playing Joe DuBois, the sleep-deprived ...
as Curtis Morgan / Garcia
*
Ralph Cosham as Justice Jensen
*
Casey Biggs
Casey Patrick Biggs (born April 4, 1955) is an American actor, best known throughout the '' Star Trek'' community for starring as the Cardassian Damar, on '' Star Trek: Deep Space Nine''. He has appeared in over eighty film and television and st ...
as Eric East
*
Stanley Anderson as Edwin Sneller
*
Christopher Murray as Rupert
Reception
Box office
''The Pelican Brief'' grossed $100.8million in the United States and Canada, and $94.5million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $195.3million,
[ against a production budget of $45million.][
]
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the film has an approval rating of 54% based on 54 reviews, with an average rating of 5.5/10. The site's consensus states: "Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington are a compelling team in the overlong ''Pelican Brief'', a pulpy thriller that doesn't quite justify the intellectual remove of Alan J. Pakula's direction." On Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, the film has a weighted average score of 50 out of 100, based on 15 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore
CinemaScore is a market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts based on the data.
Background
Ed Mintz founded Ci ...
gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.
Pat Collins, from WWOR-TV
WWOR-TV (channel 9) is a television station licensed to Secaucus, New Jersey, United States, serving the New York City area as the flagship of MyNetworkTV. It is owned and operated by Fox Television Stations alongside Fox flagship WNYW ...
, said that the film was "A heart-stopping, spine-chilling, adrenaline-pumping, run-for-your-life thriller." In ''The Chicago Sun-Times
The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...
'', Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...
gave it 3 out of a possible 4 stars, writing "the movie delivers while it's onscreen" but also believed ''The Pelican Brief'' was inferior to the film adaptation of Grisham's '' The Firm'' (also 1993) and ranked as one of Pakula's lesser efforts.
Film critic
Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films and the film medium. In general, film criticism can be divided into two categories: journalistic criticism that appears regularly in newspapers, magazines and other popular mass-media outlets ...
Brian Lowry of ''Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' wrote in his review: Pakula does a remarkable job in weaving and making sense of these complex strands. Although there's plenty of suspense as Darby and Gray evade her pursuers, the director eschews the cheaper tricks of the trade, respecting the audience's ability to keep track of what's going on. Also, ''Brief'' is a relatively gore-free thriller, with most of the violence effectively conveyed offscreen.
Film critic Janet Maslin
Janet R. Maslin (born August 12, 1949) is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for ''The New York Times''. She served as a ''Times'' film critic from 1977 to 1999 and as a book critic from 2000 to 2015. In 2000 Maslin ...
of ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' wrote in her review:
''The Pelican Brief'' is best watched as a celebration of liquid brown eyes and serious star quality, thanks to the casting of Ms. Roberts and Denzel Washington in its leading roles. Neither of these first-rate actors is shown to great dramatic advantage, but they both do a lot to make the movie shine.
Home video
''The Pelican Brief'' was released on VHS on June 15, 1994, by Warner Home Video
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Inc. (formerly known as Warner Home Video and WCI Home Video and sometimes credited as Warner Home Entertainment) is the home video distribution division of Warner Bros.
It was founded in 1978 as WCI Home Video ...
. The film was released on Blu-ray
The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...
on February 10, 2009, by Warner Home Video. ''The Pelican Brief'' was released on DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...
on September 7, 2010, by Warner Home Video.
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Pelican Brief, The
1990s legal films
1993 thriller films
1993 films
American legal films
American political thriller films
1990s English-language films
Environmental films
Films about journalists
Films based on thriller novels
Films based on works by John Grisham
Films directed by Alan J. Pakula
Films scored by James Horner
Films set in New Orleans
Films set in Washington, D.C.
Legal thriller films
Tulane University Law School
Warner Bros. films
Films set in a movie theatre
1990s American films