Midweek Mention... The Firm

SPEAKER_02 0:12

Dan, Dan, talk to us about the firm. Okay. Because you're the only one who said that.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

I tell you what, it was one it was the first John Grisham book I read, and I remember my brother and I, who weren't very vivacious readers, going to Vocabulary like that, I don't believe it. Sorry. We were travelling to I may have been Canada or somewhere with his kids. And we had this one book, and we suddenly were arguing over, you know, it was a chapter, you read a chapter, then I'm gonna read a chapter, and then you're gonna read. And it was just an absolute page turner, and it was obviously his big debut novel, his breakout novel anyway. And over the last few weeks, the family and I have been getting into the different Grisham books that have been turned into film to kill Time to Kill The Clienthood. Is the Pelican Brief one? Is it the Pelican Bridge one which we we didn't watch? Is it The Client? Is that what we watched The Client?

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Um I read the book of The Pelican Bruce.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Yeah, the Pelican Brief. Time to Kill is very good as well. Yeah. Um with Samuel L and Matthew Mahonohu. And everyone was hating him last week. Matthew Mohonohu. Was it him?

SPEAKER_02 1:23

Yeah, who did something about backing backing the wrong horse for the midterms, and then everyone's like, fuck you, you fucking fuck. Alright. Anyway, who cares?

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Okay, right. And the client, I think that was the one we watched, it was with McDamon. Is that with Matt Damon? Yeah. And they're all you know, the books are good, they're easy page turners, and the films are no different. And a lot of the time it comes down to the director on these kind of things, how they're gonna share the story of the film. Think about them being a lot of courtroom stuff, but some of them are not though, aren't they? Some of them it's more the stuff that goes on around the courtroom. Yeah, it's more it's all courtroom stories and it gets sorted out in a court of law, but there's often a lot going around. And and in this one, it's Sidney Pollock is the director. Jackson's brother. You've got Jackson, yeah, you've got Tom Cruise, Gene Hackman, Jenny Doublehorn. No, make that a triple, triple horn. You've got Ed Harris, Holly Hunter. It's quite the cast. Yeah. Gary Boosie in it as well. And it starts off with Mitch McDeary, that's Cruz, and he's a top law student at Harvard, and he's you can see he's the hard work in it.

SPEAKER_02 2:42

So reprising his kind of a few good men. Kind of like that.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

Exactly. He's he's working hard in uh a pub, you know, or a diner or whatever it is, serving drinks, pitchers of beer. He's self-made, you know. You get the feeling that nobody's given him Just like the real Tom Cruise. Just like the real Tom Cruise. Nobody's given him Mitch this easy path through law school. He's working. He's working nights in bars, he's he's done all this, and then suddenly he's got all these different law firms after him because he's gonna finish pretty much top of his class in in Harvard, and they're all giving him different offers and and then there's this one I can really relate having got a 2-1 from Plymouth. Yeah, it was just like Pulling out all the stops. The phone doesn't stop ringing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he takes this one kind of call, and it shouldn't even really be, it's such a small firm, it's not one of the big Wall Street firms. Wall from Heart and yeah, Bendini Lambert and Locke in Memphis, Tennessee. So it's like okay, I'll go and see what they've they've got. Tennessee, out of the fucking nowhere, really, surely. Yeah, it's like, you know, and they say, Well, you know, we're we're a small firm, but that's the envelope, and he goes, let us know, you know, and there there's a little bit of mind games in there. He goes, Routiner. What what's it what's in there? And he goes, Well, it's the offer that we've got in there, you should know what's in there. So then they start going into their law speaking and he goes, Well, I go, basically, what I would have done and done this, I bribed whoever it was, the the guy who knows about whichever offer you've got, and I put 20% on top, and I've given you a a house with zero fucking finance or something. I've given you a car, it's all there. So he goes back to his sweet deal. The package to a new life. Well, he's got strings attached to it.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

It seems too good to be true, if any.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

Well, well, it's interesting you say so. Abby and his wife, that's Jenny Triplehorn, relocate and and he's got to still prepare for the bar exam. And he keeps getting all these people come in, these lawyers come in and say, Oh, you've got to do this, this, and this. And he goes, I've got to prepare for the bar exam. He goes, 'Yeah, nobody's ever failed the bar exam. Nobody at kind of Lambert Locke and Bendini's ever failed the the bar exam.' He's this running this running kind of theme going through it. And he's teamed up with senior partner Avery Toller, who's Gene Hackman. And he's mentoring the firm on their strict culture of loyalty, confidentiality, high fees, and you know, you think a lot of jeans these days, you don't get a lot of jeans. No. I I I saw a I somebody named the kid Lyle, which I thought was quite a rare one as well. Sounds good. Yeah, it's for Lyle the Crocodile, though. So let's pull that back. Yeah. It's it's quite a I think isn't an oasis Lyle Gene.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

It sounds very merry. You're gonna get bullied with if you're called Lyle. I quite like a Ly L Sandy Lyle. Yeah, that's a surname, right? Yeah. But that yeah, I was gonna say that's not really. But Gene, I'm I'm fairly sure. James Avery in this film.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Yeah, Gene Hatman's name, but I'm fairly sure Liam Gallagher.

SPEAKER_02 5:59

Liam Gallagher's son is called Gene, yeah, but I think that was named after the band's Gene. Which is it Eugene, or is it just Gene? G-E-N-N. Really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

Yeah, I think I mean you had the Gene Kelly, didn't you? It's gone a bit off topic, but yeah. Anyway. We can come back onto it. It's all part of it. That none of those people, Liam Gallagher or Gene Kelly, was not this film. Um but Gene Hapman was, and he is is kind of mentoring Tom Cruise, Mitch, and he's ordering, you know. Tell us about the bar exam. What's gonna happen with the bar exam there? I'm getting there because uh the I just want to sh share a bit of the culture. Are we suspicious about Gene? Gene He's ordering gin and tonics and martinis at lunchtime, flouting the company's strict rules of no drinking and the rest of it. He's saying that if you're thinking about a client on the toilet, then you're charging them. You've got available hours. This is the kind of fucking mentality I'm trying to bring to my work. Yeah, yeah. This is this is the the kind of mentality they've got. And he also tells them nobody's ever failed the bar exam.

SPEAKER_02 7:06

We've but we've got a code for going to the toilet on our timesheets at work. Yeah. What the fuck? Well, well, you know, how long she feels.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

But are you thinking about the clients while you're doing it?

SPEAKER_02 7:15

Because then it's Well, when I used to have to do a timesheet, I would charge every fucking minute of the day to clients, every minute. Yeah, there you go. Well, I think I would fit in well with Jean.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Well, Abby's not fitting in so well because they go into this kind of getting to know you barbecue and everything. And she hears from the other wives who goes, Oh, the firm encourages children, you know. And the firm wouldn't discourage you working, and the firm would be, and she's like, Well, why the fuck would the firm discovery at this? Like, yes, she's getting these vibes, and Mitch go, no, these good people, Abby, they're good people, you know. We're we're in, they're looking after me well. He's obviously looking after his own. He's come from nothing, she's come from a bit of money, so they've always had that bit of dynamics.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

Well, they pay for his student loan, they give him a card, they give him like all the packages.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

That's right, they do it to be true, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Mercedes-Benz.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

They they do all that. And the fact when they find out two people have died in the firm there was a boat accident in the Caribbean and Cayman, in Cayman Islands. Yeah. Someone sat down the elevator. And it was a bo yeah, it was a a boat blew up, and they're like, Well, you know, these this is a bit dodgy, this. And when he his the another guy who's helping him settle in finds out he's just getting soaking wet in the sprinkler system when he gets this news, and he goes, Oh, sorry, you know, really sorry. Did you know him well? And he goes, Yeah, and he goes, Oh, by the way, the firm's gonna pay for your school fees and you know, all the rest of it. And it's like just a really bizarre thing to say at that point in that position where he was he was just ha smoking a cigarette, having a drink, getting soaked by sprinklers, but the firm have just went free in his head, like you know, they've given her a message to tell when he's gotta tell it. And the firm, as we find out, actually had something to do with those deaths. Yeah. Join us next week for more of this. So he gets to go to Cayman, he gets to with Gene Hackman, and they try and set him up with a honey trap, and he ain't falling for it, he's in love with his wife, he ain't doing it, but then this incredibly hot girl on the beach hurts her ankle or something, and he does fall for it then, and they've got him hook, line, and sinker. So when he actually finds out that the firm is not going right here, and he's just digging into things a little bit deeper and and asking uh some questions with a private detective, which is Gary Boosie. Eddie Lomax? Yeah, Eddie Lomax. Then they show him the photographs and he's like, Well, wouldn't it be a shame if this came to your beautiful wife and all the rest of it? And he realizes they got me by the fucking balls here. Like, he's also got a brother in prison, Ray, which he never said anything about. And they've started to dig a little bit deeper now, and they realise Ray's been put there for manslaughter, fought in a bar. The only reason that's been because he did some martial arts, but you know, it was that's why he went from manslaughter to just an accident or something, but he's having a tough time in prison. And so it comes to all this kind of ebbing and and flowing of the plot where the the firm are trying they're not sure how much he knows, and at one point they bring him into the big room, and he goes, You've got a c and he's got a file under his hand, under his jacket that he's trying to sneak out to get more proof, and they bring him into a big room and everybody's there, and he goes, We know what you've done. You didn't finish top in the bar exam. You finished second top in the bar exam for the whole world or whatever, like you know, so it's like hey so by this time the FBI have already come, Ed Harris, FBI have already made contact with him and given him the full story and said, look, we know that these are bad lot, they're all in with a mafia. Yeah, this is why there's a Memphis, Tennessee has this, yeah. This is why, you know, you you either with him against him, your life is gonna be completely fucked. You have got no way out of this. You've got to tell on your clients, and he knows if I tell my clients, I'm no longer a lawyer. You know, that everything I've worked so hard for, I've gone. So he's got to try and devise a plan which comes to him to keep the mafia happy, fuck the firm off, and keep the FBI off his back. Yeah. So this is the kind of triangle of and he's spinning a lot of plates. He's spinning a lot of plates, and he's got to tell the missus that he cheated on her because that's gonna come and and she's really pissed off about it. Because they've been together since high school or whatever. That's surprising though, isn't it? Yeah, no, it wasn't to me, because you could just tell the way that she was they're in love with each other that that would that would hurt her. So she eventually kind of goes away and and leaves him because it it's got too complicated and he doesn't try and fight it because things are starting to get really heated, people are running after him suddenly now with guns and shit. And he's able to navigate this kind of complex web through the fact that it was over billing. So you talking about your work over billing, actually, what they did him for wasn't the mafia money. It was making up hours, yeah. It was making up hours, and they s when they send that by post, that becomes a federal offence. All right. Each serving like $10,000 fines. And fuck murder, it's tax and stuff that they're really getting. Telling about that's awesome. Yeah, well, this this is kind of mentioned as well, you know. So it's like it was the tax and the I think it was like five years and ten thousand dollar fine for each case, and they've got hundreds and hundreds of over a billion cases. Ed Harris doesn't really understand all this until it's spelt out for him because he's just going for the big mafia guy. Yeah, yeah. But it ends up, you know, people are trying to kill him and shoot him, and he's he's getting away. There's sketchy moments when he goes back to Cayman with He Cruz as an action star in those chases and stuff. I don't remember this movie very well. Really, so much he he's he plays like the office boy out of his depth. Does he do any like running and stuff? He does a bit of running, yeah, he's good at running. He's got yeah, where he's gonna be. He's gotten a good run, and he's also got a couple of good, you know, digs in when he's and athleticism when he's running and things like that. So yeah, but very young crew, so you know he wasn't looking well hard or anything for for any part of this. He was clean cut and fresh faced. Exactly, he's a lawyer, yeah. He's out of his league and he plays that rabbit in the headlights kind of look. His missus realised his plan to to get out of it all is gonna go to shit because Gene Hackman isn't gonna be where he said he's gonna be, so she goes back in and starts seducing him in Cayman because he's always flirting with her and everything. Triplehorn seduces Gene Hackman. Yeah. That's sexy. That's all right. Yeah, yeah. So he's been he's like a terrible flirt, and he's been sort of, you know, flirting with her the whole time that they've they've known each other, and he goes over there and she sort of ends up drugging him and and kind of helping carle the papers and everything. But one of the in the one of the best scenes, you go to the mafia right at the end, who are going, Who'd this fucking Mitch, this fucking guy? He's gonna and they go, What the fuck, you know, they're all fucking this up, and they go, Excuse me, uh Mitch McDerry wants to see you? And they're like, What the fuck? They're in this, you know, so he's got to go into the mafia house and he's just come, he's got blood on him, he's just you know been in a fight and he's trying to make himself look, or then he goes, Excuse me, I've come to you as your lawyer, and I just wanted to say I've got some serious allegations and I have to tell you about them. That you know, Beldini, Locke, and Loke have been overcharging you. And they're like, well, one of the mafia goes, go, what the fuck? And the other one goes, just just wait a second, let's listen to what he's saying here. He goes, Yeah, I'm I'm terribly sorry. And he goes, and he goes, Well, what's that mean about us? And out he goes, Well, look, client privilege. I yeah, I am like a ship that will never come to port. Right, you know, I am just floating around as long as I'm okay. None of this is ever gonna none of this is gonna be ever come to light. I am your lawyer, like you know, and he's able to then keep his position to be a lawyer for the mafia, for the mafia until he leaves that firm, of course. Um but then they're also able to charge the lawyer firm, the FBI, and he goes, never mind the mafia, getting people that what are they gonna do? Wash their money in the tumble dryer. If they haven't got these people to to kind of clean it through, they're fucked, like you know. So he's able to to get through and start off uh a new life. His brother the Ray is released as part of this kind of agreement deal as well. So and Holly Hunter, who's Gary Boosie's secretary in this, ends up running off with Ray because Gary Boose gets shot. I've knitted it all together in very unlinear. Jumper you're wearing. Thank you very much. But yeah, it was you know, a a Grisham thrill, forced uh you know, forced uh something. You know the other word to that, forced de mesure. A force and really good pace. It's quite a long film. A tour de force, maybe? Tour de force, there we go. Tour de France. Yes, two and a half hours. The runtime is two and a half hours. It's not you know, they gave people their money's worth when they went to the cinema to watch this one, I guess. But it was well directed, you know, they had all these stars, so really well acted. And but were they all stars at the time?

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Cruz would have been. Cruz would have been Gene Hackman would have been. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

Gary Boosey could have been. What yeah, was it nineteen three?

SPEAKER_02 17:21

If not megastars, then on the up and up. I mean Harris was around, he did Glengarry, Glenn Ross and stuff around that time.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

Yeah, but that's a pretty big cast, I think, at the time. Yeah, and it was forty-two million po dollars and two hundred and seventy. Wow. It brought in a commercial. Right, okay.

SPEAKER_02 17:41

So released on July the 4th.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

And that must be the biggest Grisham thing, though the like that would be a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

They're always no, they're always big though, aren't they? People do love them, the Grisham books, and they love the movies as well. Time to the biggest book. This is like the Da Vinci Code of Grisham, you know. This is the the big one that everybody would know him for. Although Time to Kill was very good, and you had Pelican brief with a real who were the mafia guys in this? Was there anyone you've seen them before? Yeah, yeah. There were there were your your standard Hollywood mafia guys. You've definitely seen them before. All of them called Tony and Vince Paul Vinny. Paul Tony and Vinny. Paul and Tony. Oh, Paul Sorvino's in it. So there you go. Oh, there you go. Exactly. There you go, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:26

And guess what he was called? Tony.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Tony. You don't fuck around with with a winning force.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Tony Moroto. The best one is Hector. Have you seen the guy called Hector? There's this honestly. Joey Viccielli. If you see, if you see, if you search in any engine, Hector actor name in Hollywood is the same actor, is this bold moustache like Chicano looking guy, and in every movie he's ever been, it was like he's been in, let's say, 32 films, 28 of them he's called Hector.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

Yeah. Tobin Bell was in it as well. Alright, from the Sewell franchise. He was the Nordic hitman. You had Jerry Weintrap as such caps. Yeah, okay. Big cast. Yeah, big guns. Joey Vitelli as Joey Moroto. They don't even change as Joey. No, why would you if it's Joey? Well, why would you there? Hey, Joey! And oh, Karina Lombard as Beach Prostitute. As we said, you played for Crystal Palace. Yeah, that's right. I don't know what else she's been in, but Legends of the Fall she was in as well. A lot of hotness in that. There was there was a lot of hotness. So strong recommends, yeah. Yeah, really enjoyed it. It was you've seen it before. Yeah. As good as you remember? It was Yeah, I think it was a firm choice. Wow.