It will air today, October 12, 2023 on Rai Movie Channel at 9:10 pm. Time to kill, a 1996 thriller film directed by Joel Schumacher. Starring Sandra Bullock, Matthew McConaughey, Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey. The film is based on the bestselling novel by John Grisham. The novel is based on some court cases that struck the author with their cruelty. Let’s discover them together.
Set in Madison Country, Mississippi. Time to kill tells the story of the rape and attempted murder of Tony’s little girl, daughter African American worker a representative of a low social class, Carl Lee. Convinced that they have killed her, criminals Billy Ray Cobb and James Louis “Pete” Willard, two white supremacists, throw her off a bridge. But the little girl survives and they are both arrested. From a lawyer friend, Karl learns that they both face a light sentence. In anger, the man kills them both with a machine gun.
Now Karl is accused of murder and arrested. Following him in the defense is lawyer Jake Brigance, who hopes to achieve insanity for him. But Karl faces the hostility of everyone present in court and the trial becomes a source of clashes between Ku Klux Klan and the African American population.
The star cast gives the film a chance to shine. Samuel L. Jackson received a Golden Globe nomination for his role as Carl Lee, and more than twenty years later, the actor doesn’t seem to be stopping, just like in the new Disney+ project about him. At the MTV Movie Awards, McConaughey received the award for Best Breakthrough Performance.
It was the author of the novel, John Grisham, who explained which court cases inspired him to write this book. Before becoming a writer, Grisham worked as a lawyer and witnessed a rape trial in 1984. Not far from the law firm where he worked, Willie James Harris and his accomplice broke into a deserted farm, brutally raping two sisters aged 12 and 16. Harris attempted to kill the two girls but failed. The trial began in October, and Grisham was given the opportunity to hear testimony from his younger sister.
Empathizing with the girls’ father, Grisham felt great. desire for revenge towards this man who seemed impassive and without any sense of guilt. During that period of his life, the writer was also a supporter of the death penalty. Reflecting on the case, Grisham recalled another crime he studied in college, in which two white men were given light sentences for a racially motivated crime.
If you love True Crime, don’t miss it tonight Time to kill and get ready for a new Netflix series about the landmark all-Italian court case.