Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: The Firm (1993) - Pollack and Cruise scored big with 1993's lesser Grisham adaptation

4/21/2018

The Firm (1993) - Pollack and Cruise scored big with 1993's lesser Grisham adaptation

♥♥♥

+ 3rd Worst Movie of the Year

Tom Cruise looking ponderous and running in a suit in a steely blue-toned poster for Sydney Pollack's The Firm could really sell a film in 1993

A freshly Harvard-graduated lawyer joins a firm in Memphis that launders mob money, and he soon gets the attention of the FBI.

The Firm is written by David Rabe (Streamers (1983)), Robert Towne (Drive, He Said (1971)) and David Rayfiel (The Morning After (1986)), adapting John Grisham's (The Summons (2002)) same-titled 1991 bestseller, and directed by great Indianan filmmaker Sydney Pollack (Tootsie (1982)). 1993 saw the release of another high-profile Grisham adaptation, Alan J. Pakula's infinitely better thriller masterpiece The Pelican Brief.
The Memphis law-firm is presented as an almost mythical, pompous institution, and the story's point of having this firm laundering the entire earnings of the Chicago mob seems a bit silly. But besides this the narrative unfolds without a hitch, as an intimidating gang of fine actors (including Gene Hackman (Wyatt Earp (1994)), Ed Harris (Sweetwater (2013)), Hal Holbrook (Haven (2001, TV movie)), Jerry Harding (The Magnificent Seven (1998, TV-series)) and others) doodle around to Dave Grusin's jazzy piano score.
Tom Cruise (The Mummy (2017)) leads confidently, but his wife is played without vision by Jeanne Tripplehorn (Steal This Movie (2000)), and since The Firm places considerable weight upon their relationship, - and has a long running time, - it lowers the suspense, which lives best in the film's noirish, cat-and-mouse-like scenes.

Related post:

Sydney Pollack: Eyes Wide Shut (1999) - Kubrick signs off with thrilling, sexually oriented adaptation (actor)

1993 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

Watch a 2-minute clip from the beginning of the film here

Cost: 42 mil. $
Box office: 270.2 mil. $
= Huge hit
[The Firm premiered 23 June (New York) and runs 154 minutes. Shooting took place in Washington, Memphis, Tennessee, the Cayman Islands, Massachusetts, including Boston, Arkansas, and Washington, D.C. from November 1992 - March 1993. Hackman's credit was a matter of dispute, as Cruise's contract stipulated above-title credit for him alone. Hackman got pre-title credit in the film and went uncredited in the end credit scroll and on the posters. The film is reportedly faithful to the novel in most respects but has a different ending. The film opened #1 to a 25.4 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it stayed atop for another two weeks and stayed in the top 5 for two more weeks (#3-#3) and grossed 158.3 mil. $ (58.6 % of the total gross). Roger Ebert gave the film a 3/4 star review, translating to a notch better than this review. The film was nominated for 2 Oscars: Best Supporting Actress (Holly Hunter, who won the Best Actress Oscar that year for her performance in The Piano), lost to Anna Paquin in The Piano, and Best Score (Grusin), lost to John Williams for Schindler's List. It was also nominated for a BAFTA, a Grammy and received other honors. A TV-series sequel also called The Firm was released in 2012 and canceled after its first season. Pollack returned with Sabrina (1995). Cruise returned in Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994). The Firm is certified fresh at 76 % with a 6.2 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

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Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

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Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

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4/21/2018

The Firm (1993) - Pollack and Cruise scored big with 1993's lesser Grisham adaptation

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