A Time to Kill: Critic Reviews

If the film doesn't add up to a cogent legal argument, neither does it have trouble delivering 2 hours and 20 minutes' worth of sturdy, highly charged drama.

A handsome but riotously cluttered melodrama with maybe 145 subplots.

A skillfully constructed morality play that pushes all the right buttons and arrives at all the right conclusions.

Like many artists today, Grisham and Schumacher exploit racial tension without understanding it.

Although it has its share of implausibilities, A Time To Kill is generally the most satisfying of the John Grisham screen adaptations to date.

Despite certain drawbacks, A Time to Kill is involving, energetic, and occasionally thought-provoking. All things considered, this film will make for a worthwhile trip to the cinema for all, not just those who have time to kill.

A likable -- maybe even lovable -- movie.

McConaughey, 26, is dynamite in a performance of smarts, sexiness, scrappy humor and unmistakable star sizzle.

What craven offal!

A gritty, intense and engaging courtroom drama.

Only a screenplay by Akiva Goldsman could make things worse--and lo and behold, speak of the devil and Old Scratch appears.

With Joel Schumacher's tasteful but second-rate-Sidney-Lumet direction and Akiva Goldsman's nuts-and-bolts script, these boys have created a surprisingly stirring indictment of racism.

Justice may be blind, but rarely have courtroom dramas presumed quite so heavily on cultural myopia as this heinous version of John Grisham's first novel.

Looks aren't enough. In the lead, McConaughey isn't there.

McConaughey nails with such laconic grace that some critics are comparing him to the young Paul Newman and to Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird.

The best Grisham to hit the screen yet.

Dumbed down debate on the death penalty.