A Time to Kill

[baumer]

Discuss

[baumer]

YES THEY DESERVE TO DIE AND I HOPE THEY BURN IN HELL.One of the most memorable scenes in any movie. Even better though was McConaughey's final pitch the jury where he describes how Carl's daughter was found, battered, beaten, broken, drenched in their urine, soaked in her blood...can you see it? Now picture she's white. BAMM! Brings a lump to my throat almost everytime I watch it.And the cast has to be mentioned, one of the best ensembles ever put together. 9/10

[The Stingray]

Them rednecks got what they deserved.

[Goffe]

SIMPLY ATROCIOUS MOVIEI study the law and my professor showed two scenes of this movie in my class, the rape and the trial (My English skills are not very good then I'll quote two reviews from IMDB)"...But it also had a fatal flaw, and this fatal flaw gets translated into the movie. Namely, "A Time To Kill" sets you up......In other words, we're supposed to sympathize with Carl Lee Hailey. We're supposed to believe that a father who loves his daughter is justified in killing the men who raped her. We're supposed to feel the injustice of a system where a racist all-white jury could judge a black man who was just trying to avenge a brutal crime. We're supposed feel like we're standing alongside the people chanting "Free Carl Lee".But the racism issue is a smokescreen, and the whole thing is contrived. Carl Lee Hailey was a vigilante. Yes, there were mitigating circumstances for what he did, but the fact remains that he wasn't innocent. This would have been true no matter what his skin colour, or the skin colour of the assailants of his daughter, the judge, the jury, or anyone else." author: segacs, site: IMDB"...The biggest problem, as many others have said, is that it ends up advocating vigilante justice......in the end the message seems to be that it's OK to kill someone as long as you hate them enough. It's also convenient that the man killed was presented as totally evil and his guilt was in no doubt, which removes any of the moral ambiguity likely in a real case." author: Loose-Cannon, site: IMDB

[Ozymandias]

SIMPLY ATROCIOUS MOVIEI study the law and my professor showed two scenes of this movie in my class, the rape and the trial (My English skills are not very good then I'll quote two reviews from IMDB)"...But it also had a fatal flaw, and this fatal flaw gets translated into the movie. Namely, "A Time To Kill" sets you up......In other words, we're supposed to sympathize with Carl Lee Hailey. We're supposed to believe that a father who loves his daughter is justified in killing the men who raped her. We're supposed to feel the injustice of a system where a racist all-white jury could judge a black man who was just trying to avenge a brutal crime. We're supposed feel like we're standing alongside the people chanting "Free Carl Lee".But the racism issue is a smokescreen, and the whole thing is contrived. Carl Lee Hailey was a vigilante. Yes, there were mitigating circumstances for what he did, but the fact remains that he wasn't innocent. This would have been true no matter what his skin colour, or the skin colour of the assailants of his daughter, the judge, the jury, or anyone else." author: segacs, site: IMDB"...The biggest problem, as many others have said, is that it ends up advocating vigilante justice......in the end the message seems to be that it's OK to kill someone as long as you hate them enough. It's also convenient that the man killed was presented as totally evil and his guilt was in no doubt, which removes any of the moral ambiguity likely in a real case." author: Loose-Cannon, site: IMDB

If I had a daughter that was brutally raped to the point where she couldn't ever have kids I would've blown their asses away myself even if it meant spending the rest of my life behind bars. Also, for me, it would be the other way around skin color wise. Rape is a permanent scar on a women psychologically, it stays with them for the rest of their lives and mentally fucks them up. If it were up to me, the scene in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo would be the mandatory punishment for rapists on top of their life sentence.Cooper had the best line in the movie when he was on the stand. Edited November 26, 2012 by Shpongle

[ecstasy]

SIMPLY ATROCIOUS MOVIEI study the law and my professor showed two scenes of this movie in my class, the rape and the trial (My English skills are not very good then I'll quote two reviews from IMDB)"...But it also had a fatal flaw, and this fatal flaw gets translated into the movie. Namely, "A Time To Kill" sets you up......In other words, we're supposed to sympathize with Carl Lee Hailey. We're supposed to believe that a father who loves his daughter is justified in killing the men who raped her. We're supposed to feel the injustice of a system where a racist all-white jury could judge a black man who was just trying to avenge a brutal crime. We're supposed feel like we're standing alongside the people chanting "Free Carl Lee".But the racism issue is a smokescreen, and the whole thing is contrived. Carl Lee Hailey was a vigilante. Yes, there were mitigating circumstances for what he did, but the fact remains that he wasn't innocent. This would have been true no matter what his skin colour, or the skin colour of the assailants of his daughter, the judge, the jury, or anyone else." author: segacs, site: IMDB"...The biggest problem, as many others have said, is that it ends up advocating vigilante justice......in the end the message seems to be that it's OK to kill someone as long as you hate them enough. It's also convenient that the man killed was presented as totally evil and his guilt was in no doubt, which removes any of the moral ambiguity likely in a real case." author: Loose-Cannon, site: IMDB

LOL advocating vigilante justice. Come on, it was his daughter. His child. Do you have children? In real life no, he probably would have gotten life imprisonment. But this was a movie. Have you ever seen a charles bronson movie?

[cozmeesah]

You, and the people who wrote those reviews, totally missed the point of the defense. The defense wasn't that Carl Lee was "justified" in killing the two rapists.The plea the defense entered was "not guilty by reason of insanity." Remember how the defense brought their medical witness to the stand? He spoke about how Tonya's rape caused a switch to go off in Carl Lee's brain, rendering him "insane" during the time of the murders. THAT is all the defense had to "prove" to the jury. That something flipped inside Carl Lee's head as a result of what happened to his daughter.That is why Jake told the story he did in the closing arguments. He had to make the jury realize that it was very possible for someone to momentarily fly off the handle and have their cheese slide off their cracker after something like that happening. As Lucian (Donald Sutherland) says, in the eyes of the law, Carl Lee is as guilty as sin because the law does not allow vigilante justice. But Jake had them see it through the OTHER side of the law, the mental side.Is it realistic in actual law today? No, probably not. But that's why it was a book & a movie, it doesn't have to be totally realistic.

[ecstasy]

Anyway, as far as the movie goes, I thought this was MM's best role ever.

[ecstasy]

You, and the people who wrote those reviews, totally missed the point of the defense. The defense wasn't that Carl Lee was "justified" in killing the two rapists.The plea the defense entered was "not guilty by reason of insanity." Remember how the defense brought their medical witness to the stand? He spoke about how Tonya's rape caused a switch to go off in Carl Lee's brain, rendering him "insane" during the time of the murders. THAT is all the defense had to "prove" to the jury. That something flipped inside Carl Lee's head as a result of what happened to his daughter.That is why Jake told the story he did in the closing arguments. He had to make the jury realize that it was very possible for someone to momentarily fly off the handle and have their cheese slide off their cracker after something like that happening. As Lucian (Donald Sutherland) says, in the eyes of the law, Carl Lee is as guilty as sin because the law does not allow vigilante justice. But Jake had them see it through the OTHER side of the law, the mental side.Is it realistic in actual law today? No, probably not. But that's why it was a book & a movie, it doesn't have to be totally realistic.

Yeah in real life he would have fried. If the mother didn't get off for killing the man that molested her son here in California. She shot his ass down. She didn't get first degree murder but she was convicted nonetheless.

[baumer]

If I had a daughter that was brutally raped to the point where she couldn't ever have kids I would've blown their asses away myself even if it meant spending the rest of my life behind bars. Also, for me, it would be the other way around skin color wise. Rape is a permanent scar on a women psychologically, it stays with them for the rest of their lives and mentally fucks them up. If it were up to me, the scene in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo would be the mandatory punishment for rapists on top of their life sentence.Cooper had the best line in the movie when he was on the stand.

Fantastic post. One of the best I have ever read here or at any forums. I too am with you. If I had a daughter, or a son that they did this too, I wouldn't think twice about killing them and then calling the police and turning myself in. Fuckers like that lost all their rights imo once they took those rights away from a child.

[John Marston]

Fantastic post. One of the best I have ever read here or at any forums. I too am with you. If I had a daughter, or a son that they did this too, I wouldn't think twice about killing them and then calling the police and turning myself in. Fuckers like that lost all their rights imo once they took those rights away from a child.

if you weren't there and there hasn't; been a trial yet, how would you know the person you were going after was the guy who did it? Edited November 27, 2012 by John Marston

[Goffe]

If I had a daughter that was brutally raped to the point where she couldn't ever have kids I would've blown their asses away myself even if it meant spending the rest of my life behind bars. Also, for me, it would be the other way around skin color wise. Rape is a permanent scar on a women psychologically, it stays with them for the rest of their lives and mentally fucks them up. If it were up to me, the scene in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo would be the mandatory punishment for rapists on top of their life sentence.

Cooper had the best line in the movie when he was on the stand.

LOL advocating vigilante justice. Come on, it was his daughter. His child. Do you have children? In real life no, he probably would have gotten life imprisonment. But this was a movie. Have you ever seen a charles bronson movie?

one rape = two deaths and one police officer seriously injured (for the rest of his life too). Is that fair guys? of course not

I undestand why the father did it and I undestand the gravity of the crime (the rape) too, but the guys didn't deserve to die, after all, they had families too (and the police officer). If the rapists were one of yours children?

my point is, Carl should have caught years in jail

Edited November 27, 2012 by Goffe Bond

[ecstasy]

one rape = two deaths and one police officer seriously injured (for the rest of his life too). Is that fair guys? of course not

I undestand why the father did it and I undestand the gravity of the crime (the rape) too, but the guys didn't deserve to die, after all, they had families too (and the police officer). If the rapists were one of yours children?

my point is, Carl should have caught years in jail

And if it was real life and not a movie, he woulld have. So people scrutinize every vigilante justice movie like they did this one? It was a work of fiction.

[The Toymaker]

A Time To Kill

Well clearly Goffe Bond is correct. The rest of you are just trying to make a sloppy defence for the movie because you personally enjoyed it whilst overlooking Goffe Bond's criticisms of it.

When I first watched it, I also overlooked them. But since reading an article on Cracked.com, I have since had the same view as Goffe Bond. He was "innocent" of a crime where he was quite obviously not innocent - everybody saw him kill those two wastes of space and injure that guard.

It is a movie, and it did provide enjoyment, but with movies comes a certain level of realism, especially courtroom dramas like this, and it failed on that note.

I used to grade this around a B, but now it gets a D+.