'The Client' has trouble with adaptation<\/p>\n
By Sean Cole<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): The Client couldn't lose. After John Grisham's
\nfirst two Mega Bestsellers\" (The Firm and The Pelican Brief)
\nwere turned into movies, everyone predicted that The Client had
\nno chance of failing.<\/p>\n
Of course they were right. The book itself has been translated
\ninto 31 languages and has sold over 60 million copies. Both The
\nFirm (starring Tom Cruise) and The Pelican Brief (Julia Roberts
\nand Denzel Washington) grossed near and upwards of US$100
\nmillion. It's a simple equation. John Grisham is quickly becoming
\nthe Stephen King of the American legal system.<\/p>\n
So, how much should we judge a film adaptation on its
\nfaithfulness to its source? Should we see them as separate
\nentities? Surely a film should be able to stand on its own,
\naccessible to those who don't already know the story. As the
\ncritic in August first's People magazine phrased it \"For Grisham
\nfans, this is the real thing; for non-Grisham fans, to hell with
\nthe book, just see the movie.\"<\/p>\n
It is not easy to make a film from a book. One must go
\nthrough pages and pages of scenes and dialogue and somehow
\nparallel major narrative devices, on which the whole story hinges
\n-- visually. Unfortunately, this difficulty often shows up in the
\nend result, the film itself.<\/p>\n
The Client has this problem and overall, the story on screen
\nis uninteresting and somewhat unbelievable. This could be the
\nfault of a combination of things.<\/p>\n
Premise<\/p>\n
The premise is interesting enough. Eleven-year-old Mark Sway
\n(Brad Refno) and his little brother Ricky (David Speck) are out
\nfor a smoke in the Memphis woods. Here they witness someone
\nattempting suicide via carbon-monoxide poisoning. In trying to
\nstop him, Mark gets locked in the car with Jerome \"Romey\"
\nClifford, a mob lawyer. Romey, very predictably, tells Mark mob
\nsecrets that could get him killed (if he weren't being killed
\nalready) and Mark, just as predictably, escapes. Romey kills
\nhimself. Its all over the news. Suddenly an eleven-year-old has
\nthe F.B.I., the Mafia, and famous District Attorney, Reverend Roy
\nFoltrigg (Tommy Lee Jones), known for quoting the Bible in court
\nand never losing a case, after him. Plus, his brother's in a
\nstate of post-traumatic-stress-disorder and his mother has lost
\nher job. So he hires divorce lawyer Reggie Love (Susan Sarandon)
\nto protect his rights.<\/p>\n
Now this story could have been made into either a gripping,
\nheart-shaking thriller or a single episode of Murder She Wrote.
\nThe Client falls somewhere in between. Part of the problem is the
\nmeting out of information, the pace. After beginning excellently
\nand having every move well-paced, believable, understandable (and
\nvery suspenseful) in the forest, its a mad dash from then on.
\nThe rushed, choppy quality of the movie appears to stem, again,
\nfrom the makers trying to fit a novel complete with setting,
\nconflict, climax and resolution into two hours.<\/p>\n
Approach<\/p>\n
Another difficulty is how the story was approached. Around
\none fourth of the way through, the movie begins to come apart and
\nnever seems to fully recover. The attempts at comedy within the
\nsame exaggerated stylization appear more to be self-mockery.<\/p>\n
Also, these somewhat funny, worst-scenario characters and
\nsituations -- the stereotypical hounding reporter, the
\nstereotypical hounding lawyer, the stereotypical Mafia thug, etc.
\n-- coupled with serious, believable characters like Mark, Reggie,
\nReverend Roy, Judge Harry Roosevelt (Ossie Davis, one of the best
\nparts of the film) makes it inconsistent and confused.<\/p>\n
One is never sure what to take seriously and what to see as
\npurposefully ridiculous. The exaggerated quality seeps into the,
\nsupposedly, dramatic scenes. Clearly, the makers should have
\neither chosen one approach or another.<\/p>\n
Then there is the question of characterization and\/or
\nperformance of these characters. At this point, Tommy Lee Jones
\n(this film is only one of four projects he appears in this year
\nalone, the others include Blown Away, Natural Born Killers and
\nBlue Sky) and Susan Sarandon pretty much guarantee superb
\nperformances.<\/p>\n
Mary Louise Parker is fine as Mark's mother, it is her
\nchildren that are distracting. I don't like to speak ill of
\nchild-actors, they are only beginning and are the low-boys-and-
\ngirls on Hollywood's totem pole. But Brad Refno's mark appears to
\nget angry in the same way whenever he gets angry. His attempt at
\nconveying bitterness and rage escapes him weakly, his words
\nbecoming whiny as he spits them out. But for all actors and
\nespecially those that are children, one test is never enough.<\/p>\n
From there we sink to Anthony LaPaglia's portrayal of Barry
\n\"the Blade\" Muldano. LaPaglia churns out a cliche' (at best)
\nwaste-of-space, no-brained character who is upsetting in his
\nshallowness and open-shirt. It is actually a wonder that any of
\nthese actors chose to work on this project. And, here, one cannot
\njustifiably say whether the performance problems stemmed more
\nfrom the actors, director, screen-writers or from Grisham
\nhimself.<\/p>\n
The common problem all of these films face is that their
\ndynamics are imposed. Chiefly, all that is included, all that can
\nbe, are the major turning points of the story, the landmarks. So
\nwhat we are left with are a collection of major pieces of
\ndialogue, characters in heart-wrenching turmoil and\/or happiness
\nwith very little subtlety, very little in between. We are left
\nwith a skeleton housed in nothing, no muscle or sinew or flesh.<\/p>",
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