![]() When death threats force his family to leave town, Jake even accepts the help of pushy young know-it-all lawyer Ellen Roark (Sandra Bullock). Jake eventually takes this case seriously enough to seek help from his old law-school professor (Donald Sutherland). Jackson), a black man on trial for killing the two. Despite the efforts of the NAACP and local black leaders to persuade Carl to choose some of their high-powered legal help, he remains loyal to Jake, who had helped his brother with a legal problem before the story begins. When the debt-ridden lawyer Jake Brigance (Matthew McConaughey) decides to defend Carl Lee Hailey (Samuel L. When Hailey chooses novice lawyer Jake Brigance (Matthew McConaughey) to handle his defense, it begins to look like a certainty that Carl will hang, and Jake's career (and perhaps his life) will come to a premature end. Indeed, so inflammatory is the situation, that the local KKK (led by Kiefer Sutherland) becomes popular again. Unfortunately, Carl and his daughter are black, and the assailants are white, and all the events take place in the South. Normally, a distraught father could count on some judicial sympathy in those circumstances. Jackson) takes the law into his own hands after the legal system fails to adequately punish the men who brutally raped and beat his daughter, leaving her for dead. His argument is that Carl Lee was insane when he killed them.īut as a lawyer, as someone who represents justice, should he continue to plead insanity when he knows that Carl Lee had committed the murder in cold blood? Carl Lee had approached and forewarned Jake of his intentions.Carl Lee Hailey (Samuel L. But the next dilemma is faced by the lawyer. This is the premise for the movie A Time to Kill. What follows is a horrible crime against the young girl and eventually retrubution by her father against the two men. The occupants happen to be two drunk racists. A truck comes barreling down the deserted road. They raped her and basically destroyed her life, so does that mean that they have to be punished to death? I think it all comes down to whether the rape of a child justifies murder.ĭoes Tonya's father have a right to kill those men for what they did?.Ģ. A 10-year-old black girl is walking home from the store on a sunny day in Mississippi. The first ethical dilemma here is the killing.Ĭan Carl Lee justify killing those men by what they did to his daughter?. The rest of the movie follows the trial of Carl Lee, defended by Jake Brigance creating a dramatic forum for ethical debate uncommon in most commercial American films.ġ. In other words he was indirectly forewarning Jake of his intentions to kill the men. Jackson), being raped and beaten and hung from a tree and left to die by two young intoxicated white men.Ĭarl Lee, the father of the victim, takes the law into his own hands and shoots to death the pair of men in front of dozens of witnesses in the Canton, Mississippi courthouse just before the two men were to go on trial.Įarlier, Carl Lee had also approached his friend Jake Brigance (McConaughey), a young white struggling lawyer, and asked for Jake's help in case he gets in trouble. ![]() The plot begins with 10-year old, black girl, Tonya Hailey, one of the many children of a poor black man Carl Lee Hailey (Samuel L. He turns to Jake Brigance (Matthew McConaughey), an untested lawyer, to defend him. Jackson) is a heartbroken black father who avenges his daughter's brutal rape by shooting the bigoted men responsible for the crime as they are on their way to trial. This movie is based in a southern Mississippi town where racial tension runs high through out the community. What is A Time to Kill about Carl Lee Hailey (Samuel L. But for those seeking justice in Americas judicial system, this movie is disturbing. For those rooting for equity and retribution in the racially torn South, you might cheer. For those with children (especially daughters), you might be filled with rage. "A Time to Kill" is a movie that will touch all of your emotions.
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