The Firm (1993)

Movie Info

“Are you f*!?ing crazy?”

Mitch McDeere (Tom Cruise) has been given the shot of a lifetime.  A top graduate of Harvard, Mitch has been recruited by a small Memphis firm called Bendini, Lambert & Locke which is giving him an offer that seems too good to be true.  With his wife Abby (Jeanne Tripplehorn), Mitch is about to find out that the offer might just be that.  “The Firm” has high demands for its employees, and they will go to any means to control them.

Directed by Sydney Pollack, The Firm is a suspense-thriller drama.  The movie was an adaptation of John Grisham’s 1991 best-selling novel and the first Grisham novel adaptation.  The movie was well received and did well at the box office.  It received Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor (Holly Hunter) and Best Original Score.

John Grisham was everything in the 1990s.  He was a best-selling author and completely untapped for ideas.  The Firm introduced Grisham to the big screen and started a series of adaptations that stretched through most of the decade.  The Firm was the first and one of the best.

Mrs. McDeere…are you trying to seduce me?

The movie is a nice taut thriller.  The movie has a lot of twists and turns and through the course of the two and a half hours, and it manages to keep the tension up.  Granted, Mitch spends a lot of time running around through the movie (a trend in many Tom Cruise movies), but the plot builds and so does the tension.

Part of what makes the movie work is the cast.  Tom Cruise is in top form as the young attorney caught in a snare and Jeanne Tripplehorn is good as his wife who finds herself deciding if she can trust her husband.  Holly Hunter is the scene stealer as the secretary sucked into the plot, but Gene Hackman is also strong as the man who’s lived Mitch’s life before.  The movie also has Hal Holbrook, Ed Harris, Wilford Brimley, David Strathaim, Gary Busey, Paul Sorvino, Tobin Bell, and Dean Norris.

Yeah…I’m totally going for quirky Supporting Actress vibe

The movie also looks slick.  The Memphis setting (in addition to the islands) is solid and augmented with a great soundtrack.  The movie uses the location to build and grow the tension as the movie continues to truck.

The Firm remains a nice solid thriller many years later.  John Grisham movies play out as you expect now, but when he was a new and exciting writer, he was rather original.  The Firm demonstrates Grisham’s skills and ability, and it is worth revisiting or watching for the first time.  The story was later followed by a short-lived TV sequel which aired for one season on NBC from 2011 to 2012.