So I am at the thrift store and picking around VHSs, and the usual route here is to grab something unknown and random, and I pick up 1996's The Chamber in this context.
Bought for almost $4 million for a one-page idea around the height of the legal thriller, Hollywood banged down John Grisham's door to make another smash hit like The Firm. The Chamber is originally going to star Brad Pitt and be directed by Ron Howard, that falls apart and eventually what we have here gets made.
Chris O'Donnell and Gene Hackman star in this southern story of a bomb which kills two children, and the fallout involving the killer being put on death row. Sam (Hackman) has been in prison for 16 years and his grandson O'Donnell is a lawyer who decides to fight for him. Sam is definitely a racist asshole, and guilty of many things, but is he guilty of the bombing?
The Chamber is a really odd movie in that we are watching our protagonist fight for a racist, and grow close to one, and Sam is not like the lovable curmudgeonly old dude who we kinda love. He is a murderer, a slur blaring bigot who doesn't hold back and isn't trying to be on any good behavior. Watching as we emote some sort of sympathy towards him for almost 2 hours is...an odd choice, to say the least.
We're all expecting bland leading man Chris O'Donnell to legalese his way to a happy conclusion and he doesn't, spoiler alert, so at least it does not pull punches. I'll give it 1.5 stars and say it does move pretty quick.
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