The pelican brief

Year of release : 1993

Run time : 2h21m

Genre : Legal Thriller / Crime

Cast : Julia Roberts, Denzel Washington, Sam Shepard, Stanley Tucci, Tony Goldwyn

The movie is based on 1992 John Grisham novel of the same name.

An assassin is given a picture of a man group gathering, with two of them having their heads circled. He then k1lls them, and we find out they are Supreme Court Justices.

A university student, Darby Shaw by her name, who is dating her teacher, thinks she can solve the mystery of who and why would want to have these 2 men k1lled. After she writes the brief, she gives it to her teacher and lover, who has relapsed into drinking, hearing of one of their deaths, as they were friends.

He thinks she wrote a pretty good brief, so he gives it to one of his friends in the FBI who is trying to solve the case.

Right after, while out on a date, Darby refuses to get into the car with her man as he's drunk, and wants to drive. He gets into the car by himself, and when he ignites the engine the car explodes.

After the accident, at the police station, she finds out the men she talked to at the scene of the crime, who told her they were policemen, do not exist, and she understands her brief was correct, and she goes into hiding. Thing hard to do, as she is followed by a group of men, trying to get her.

Washington Herald reporter, Gray Grantham, is contacted by an informant who is afraid to speak, so he tries to find out who he is. Darby also gets in touch with him, and Gray tells her he needs proof to believe her.

At the same time, Darby finds out from her friend her computer and everything related to it is gone. Also, she contacted her man's FBI agent friend, setting up a meeting, and finds out after she thought she almost met him, that it wasn't him!

Darby is followed by so many men trying to get her, she doesn't know who to trust and where to hide. Will she be able to get out alive?

I personally enjoyed the movie, although it's long. It doesn't miss a beat, it doesn't have filler scenes, it keeps you in your seat, interested.

One thing that took me out of it was although Darby is a 24 year old student, she seems to be very rich, as the moment she realizes she's hunted, she doesn't go home anymore, but stays at a hotel which looks pretty expensive, and doesn't use the credit card (when she realizes they can trace her, she says she's using her father's money), so she had a lot of money with her?! How, since she was on a date when all this started happening? She doesn't seem to be in touch with her parents, just one friend (I don't remember if she ever said anything about her parents).Then, when she finally meets Gray (in New York. I think she was at the Tulane University in Louisiana when everything starts happening), they stay at what seems to be a very expensive hotel, as it seems to be a skyscraper, as there's a view of the Chrysler building from her window, very close to it. Then, when she leaves the country, she's in what seems to be a rich cottage.

Gray again, seems to be a rich character.

The writer of the book ,I guess, seems to be obsessed with last names, as most of the characters of the movie have a first last name, like our lead Darby Shaw, the other lead, Gray Grantham, and other characters, Curtis Morgan, Fletcher Coal, Smith Keen.

The actors were good, especially Julia Roberts who has to act scared and shocked (after her lover dies).

I didn't like the soundtrack, it's what you'd expect from the soundtracks at the time.

The movie was a success, grossing 195.3 million dollars at the box office, against a budget of 45 million dollars.

Cinema Score audiences gave the movie a B+ on an A+ to F scale.

Rating : Worth a watch !