The Client (**) In School

Here are some observations I had about the film The Client. I first would note that the director Joel Schumacher had made many movies over the years. I think his body of the work has gotten better over the years. Is early movies such as Flatliners, St Elmo’s Fire and Lost Boys are early examples of his work which I din’t care musch for. Later in his career he took many risks with films like Falling Down, 8mm, Flawless, Tigerland, Veronica Guerin, and Phone Booth which are pretty good films. These films were small in nature compared to The Client, A Time to Kill, Batman Forever, Batman and Robin and The Phantom of the Opera which were more big budget films with A list actors. I feel he works better in the smaller films than the big budget films.

The Client if I were to look at this movie historically when in came out in 1994. It was a film that came out right after the success of The Firm and The Pelican Brief. So the pressure to make The Client was definitely on the filmmakers mind. John Grisham was a hot writer at the time and his movies were hot items in Hollywood. Joel having some marginally success in film was hired to do the movie. He hired Akiva Goldsmith a first time writer to write the screenplay for the film a hard task for such a hot item in Hollywood. Akiva has later moved on to write other big budget films based of books. For a first time screenwriter I feel he did a good job of taking a very famous book and translating it to the screen without getting bogged down with all the technical jargon that Grisham tends to use. I prefer more technical Jargon than the generic approach, but for the Hollywood this is fine for this film.

The cast of the movie seemed to all be perfectly cast as there parts in the film. Sometime I feel the dialogue is a little too strong to point out the characteristics of the characters from the film so it feels a little unnecessary for them to do this. For example how the state that Reggie had a drink problem or how poor the family is, how the cop fools the kid with the coke can.

When I first saw this movie in 1994 I really liked the opening scene in its creepiness of the suicide and how socking it was. Now fourteen years later I don’t feel that creepiness. I still like the music, by the brilliant Howard Shore, and the performance of Walter Olkewicz hold the mood, but I could help focusing on the performance of the two kids which I feel don’t hold up as much as I remember them. I do like the blocking and the POV shots during this sequence that helps with the tone. Other than the opening scene I feel the movie is somewhat generic in its cinematic approach to a thriller. Another thing that doesn’t hold up is the how dated the film is now. I think it is fine for the film, but having lived in the nineties I can’t help but cringe at the hair and wardrobe.

I would like to note about all the actors in the film that now has very successful television shows. So you can see how much the ensemble cast of the film had an effect on their future endeavors. Many of their performance such as Dan Castellanta, AKA Homer Simpson, as the photographer, Barry the Blade, Anthony LaPaglia and Dianne Sway Mary Louise Parker stand out to me to be pretty memorable. With all the cast members I think this film is worth watching to see all the great bits by the secondary cast.