'The Pelican Brief'
Everyone Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Amanda Dobbins have told about this podcast is dead. But that doesn't stop them from rewatching the 1993 American legal thriller 'The Pelican Brief,' starring Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington. The film is based on the 1992 novel by John Grisham and directed by Alan J. Pakula.
Cast
Julia Roberts as Darby Shaw
Denzel Washington as Gray Grantham
Sam Shepard as Thomas Callahan
Stanley Tucci as Khamel
Tony Goldwyn as Fletcher Cole
John Lithgow as Smith Keen
John Heard as Gavin Verheek
Anthony Heald as Markinson
William Atherton as Bob Gminski
Directed by: Alan J. Pakula
Written by: Alan J. Pakula
Categories
Quote from Rog's review:
“Ordinary novels are easier to film than great ones, because the director doesn't have to waste time on details that the novelist has already established.”
- Wrote that a good director can 'create the illusion of meaning'.
- Did a 'drive-by shooting' of Grisham, saying his plots are average and 'his novels exist to be filmed'.
- The two judge murders (nursing home and gay movie theater).
- Sam Shepard's car bomb scene.
- The Riverwalk assassination sequence.
- Sam Shepard's appeal as an actor and a presence.
- Newspapers as a cool movie device; New Orleans as a filming location.
- Tony Goldwyn playing a scumbag.
- The movie being 141 minutes (3 minutes longer than All the President's Men).
- Floppy disks, old computers, porn theaters as plot devices.
- The 8-minute opening with pelican footage before anything happens.
- Stanley Tucci's assassin dying without explanation of who killed him or why.
- Darby's 'I'm scared' whispering voice for most of the movie after the car bomb.
- Julia Roberts is wildly miscast – the movie is unquestionably better with Sandra Bullock.
- Victor Matisse could only afford two assassins despite being one of the richest men in the country.
- Grisham wrote Darby Shaw thinking of Julia Roberts specifically.
- Discussion of whether this would have been better as a 1970s film with Robert Redford and Jessica Lange.
- Actually an 'underacting award' – both Julia Roberts and Denzel underplay the material.
- Julia's car bomb reaction scene cited as the notable exception.
- Anthony Heald wins automatically.
- James Sikking (Hill Street Blues) and William Atherton.
- 2023 version: Zendaya as Darby Shaw.
- Gender-swapped: Zendaya as reporter, Tom Holland as law student; Adam Driver as Gray Grantham.
- Budget $45 million, made $193 million.
- Julia Roberts presented Denzel his Best Actor Oscar the year after she won Best Actress.
- Pakula died tragically when a pipe went through his windshield on the highway.
- Tulane University and John Grisham (selling movie ideas before books are published).
- Denzel: not yet, 'Training Day' is apex; Julia: still 'Pretty Woman' at this point.
- Poor protection for Supreme Court justices – one caretaker, easy break-in.
- Julia and Denzel don't appear on screen together until the 68-minute mark.
JT Walsh as Matisse.
- Is Gray Grantham dating, married, divorced, asexual, or gay?
- Could Sam Shepard have been one of the biggest movie stars in the world?
- The Firm (bang them out together, long evening).
- The Parallax View (Pakula's earlier paranoid thriller).
- The original Pelican brief document (the prop).
- Denzel's Howard University T-shirt.
If you find out about a giant government conspiracy, just keep it to yourself.
Amanda: Sam Shepard; Sean: Denzel Washington – crosses from A-list to A-plus; Bill: John Grisham.
Craig Horlbeck.