Time to Kill, A (DVD)

A very nice movie that includes many of my favorite actors. Well written book that the movie was made from.

There are already a great many reviews here providing a summary of the plot, opinions on acting,etc. Therefore, this review will only focus upon the actual quality of the transfer of 'A Time to Kill' to Blue Ray. However, I will say that this film is filled with a huge cast of major stars as well as glimpses of people at the very beginning of their acting careers long before they became stars...check out the whole 5 seconds of Olivier Spencer towards the end of the film. Keep in mind that the quality of what you see and hear also depends upon the quality of TV monitor you are using and its accompanying home theater processor and speakers. I have a pretty high end, esoteric system and am judging the Blu Ray off of that. VIDEO QUALITY.... The transfer to the Blu Ray is perfectly clean for this very powerful film. Tho' filmic in appearance with a slightly soft focus, there are no artifacts or dropouts anywhere. I noticed no appreciable grain or anything whatsoever distracting for the viewer to object to. Color grading is richly warm without being exaggerated and blacks, when called for, go deep past pluge without removing small details from the screen. Mbps rate generally stayed between the mid twenties and low thirties depending upon the amount of movement in the scene. A very fine video transfer. AUDIO QUALITY... The disc automatically starts when you press play and defaults to a lossy Dolby Digital audio. Press 'Pause' and get to the menu where you can set the audio to a lossless Dolby Tru HD 5.1 soundtrack. The opening scenes of the film utilize both the front and rear sound stages with some subtle foley fx discreetly going to the surrounds. After that, this film is largely dialogue based and so for almost the entire film it will be only the front stage that is used and even then, just your center channel. The surrounds are used primarily for the music soundtrack which is barely noticeable as the film relies upon the dialogue and power of the story rather than have the music lead the way to how you are to feel. The LFE channel contributes only slightly to ambience. Dialogue is clear and transparent throughout the film with no issues as all. EXTRAS.....Except for a trailer, there are none. NADA,ZIP,NOTHING,ZILCH, Whatever happened to all those wonderful extras that Blu Ray was to deliver? Despite all that, for the price of this disc, which is dirt cheap, you are getting a fine film with a really good transcode to Blu Ray. It is not a demo disc but, so what? Really glad to have this one in my collection. I do hope that this review, which focused solely upon the quality of the actual transfer to Blu Ray has been of some help to you in deciding your purchase. All of my reviews are of this nature and I hope they can be of HELP to you as well. Thanks for reading.

Great movie

A great movie and the shipper was rapid shipping in great condition

Great movie

The best part of this movie is when Samuel L. Jackson's character tells Matthew McConaughey's character [the White Savior Lawyer] why he is the "secret weapon" that will get him acquitted. I have mixed feelings. I know I'm seeing this movie nearly 20 years after it was made. The characters are well-portrayed by the actors [a wonderful cast]. I've never been a big fan of Grisham's novels, and I found the movie and the premise exploitative, and as another reviewer commented, quite unrealistic for everything being tied up in a nice bow at the end. The IMPACT of deep-seated prejudice was glossed over somewhat there. What I mean by this is that all the tensions stirred up in that town will not resolve based on one jury's verdict about one fictional man whose actions were predicated on Grisham's reaction to a 12-year old girl's testimony about her own rape. A tragedy to be sure, but exploited somewhat for this story. For white people there's a frisson of thrill at seeing the KKK humiliated; for black people it's just another plot based on their real-world suffering. I loved Jackson's, McConaughey's, Bullock's, Platt's, Spacey's, Chris Cooper's and Donald Sutherland's performances. The actors who got nuanced roles were Jackson, Bullock, Platt, and Donald Sutherland. Chris Cooper was a saintly character [and only Cooper's performance stuck the landing]; McConaughey brought some nuance and lots of feeling to his stereotypical Young Stubborn Lawyer Fighting the System for Justice [now a trope], Keifer Sutherland got with the Evil Guy role, which was written with absolutely no nuance. I mean, he's got the right face for it, because he can curdle his face into a searingly cruel expression, but his dad definitely scored a better role. Ashley Judd was the Wife Driven by Her Husband's Stubbornness into Almost Leaving HIm. I really hate seeing "topical" movies 15 years after they were made, because the tropes just stick out like a circus tent. The actors did wonderfully with a somewhat crappy script by Akiva Goldsman, who is not well-known for much nuance. He gets some in there with certain characters, but the script is drawn quite starkly in [please excuse the expression] black and white.

Samuel Jackson really did a great job on this moie

John Grisham, the author of the novel that this film was adapted from, has said that, of all the movie adaptions of his books (seriously, more than one...he's doing well), this one is his favorite. As an avid John Grisham reader, I have to agree. For one thing, it stays pretty faithful to it's source material, which is generally a good thing for me as adaptions rarely come off well when they deviate too greatly. Matthew McConaughey and Kevin Spacey were two great advisaries on opposite sides of the courtroom during this high-profile murder trial...one fighting for his client, Samuel L. Jackson, who killed the men who had raped his daughter and now faces the Mississippi gas chamber for it, and the other seeks to further his political career. I would like to compliment the cast on the fact that, while their characters certainly had southern accents, something vital given the plot takes place entirely in Mississippi, no one overdid it on that front, an instant mood-killer for me. It was amusing to watch Sandra Bullock's character, a visitor from Massachusetts, try to fit in by pointing out things she knew about southern dialects and accents (like her first meeting with Mr. McConaughey.) Also, correct me if I'm wrong (I hope I'm not) but I don't think Mr. McConaughey was even once shirtless in this film...proves he can be a good actor while remaining dressed. I would have liked to have seen more of Ashley Judd, who played Mr. McConaughey's wife, but seeing as I've praised this film for it's faithfulness to the original novel and her character isn't in the novel that much because she's left town for her own and their daughter's well-being, I suppose I'll just deal with it. I really liked Charles S. Dutton as the sherriff of the Mississippi town where all this mayhem takes place...the man can do no wrong. I know that this film has sparked some contraversy for it's handling of murder and the punishments for it, but I've set all that aside and just enjoyed the film as a form of entertainment. Donald Sutherland's character does some the situation up nicely when he points out that there will be justice whether the case is won or lost...that's one heck of a system right there. I recommend you go out, get this film, and do the same. Enjoy.

I did not dislike a thing about the movie. Bruce Boylan

Deux délinquants "blancs" violent, torturent et laissent pour morte une petite fille "noire" de dix ans. Alors qu'ils arrivent au tribunal, le père de la fillette (Samuel L. Jackson) les abat. "Non coupable" est le titre du roman de John Grisham dont le film est une adaptation. L'action se situe au Mississippi, état qui pratique encore aujourd'hui la peine de mort et dont près de la moitié de la population est évangéliste. Vu le contexte de l'époque, il y a de fortes chances pour que les présumés coupables ressortent libres du tribunal ou avec des peines mineures. C'est ce qui pousse le père à passer à l'acte. Le moins que l'on puisse dire c'est que le procès du père ne se passe pas dans la sérénité. Le climat, sur fond de racisme exacerbé, est particulièrement pesant. Le droit de tuer est un thriller juridique de haut niveau. On voit s'affronter un procureur carrieriste (Kevin Spacey) et un avocat de la défense (Matthew McConaughey) sans grands moyens aidé par une assistante bénévole (Sandra Bulock) qui amène un peu de fraicheur à l'ensemble.

"Now imagine she is white..." There are few single statements in film that prove to be as shocking and effective as this statement. A Time to Kill is not without it's flaws but on the surface it is an extremely entertaining film that helps to expose an ugly truth within society, not just in the period for which it is set but also as it is today. This film works towards a closing argument that will make you take note. McCaughey and Jackson both put in strong performances while Bullock seems a little more out of place in this first seen drama for her earlier film career but that is not to say that she is bad in it, not at all. While films, like music are highly subjective items, I find this to be a very entertaining and thought provoking film that has made me a fan since I first saw it all those years ago. The Blur-ray features a clean and crisp transfer that you would expect for a Blu-ray but it is woefully short of any bonus materials or additional features. I highly recommend it for the film itself, missing extras should not be a deterrent to see or buy this film.

Film bello ed emozionante, che tratta di un argomento scottante e ancora attuale, purtroppo. Dopo averlo cercato a lungo, finalmente sono riuscita a trovarlo ad un prezzo accessibile. Con un cast d'eccezione, vale la pena vederlo. Consigliatissimo.!

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