The Pelican Brief (1993)

Second viewing; first viewing with original audio; previously viewed, dubbed in Portuguese, on August 15, 2001.

Two Supreme Court justices are executed. A law student does some research work on who might want to get rid of two men who diverged in almost every issue; she comes up with a suspect. She writes a brief detailing how she came to that suspect. After that brief reaches powerful hands, people around her start to die and she must run for her life.

This is a reasonably well-made thriller, but only in a purely mechanical sense. In what regards the plot, the whole thing is very flawed in an essential way. After the law student has divulged her theory to the press, she is no longer a worthwhile target, so the notion that the bad guys would chase her relentlessly and indefinitely is ludicrous. In fact, even before that, they couldn't know who else knew about her findings, or even would come to the same conclusions as her on their own. After all, she used only public information on her research. It is true that, in midfilm, she does come into possession of some relevant material items, but she only gets to that position because she was being chased, so a misconception somehow made the plot become more plausible. But, if you can get past that, the film does move along in an agreeable pace, and many individual sequences are entertaining. The more, say, personal, or emotional, aspect of the characters is a weak spot of the movie, and does not come across as credible. Also, there is a bizarre product placement in action here, where the product is the main actress. Through compliments from at least one other character in the movie, the filmmakers seem to want the audience to believe she is a stunning beauty. By what one reads in the press from that period, and even later, it seems to have worked.

Rating: 42 (unchanged)