The best magicians are able to wow you, to do tricks which you are unable to explain. They will feel like true magic because what they do seems impossible. When after that you see a magician who isn’t working at the same level, you quickly notice the moments where he is trying to trick you, making the performance fall apart. That is the feeling I had while watching The Client.
While two brothers are playing in the forest they witness a lawyer about to commit suicide. They try to prevent it, but the man discovers one of them and tells him about the location of a body which could land a dangerous criminal in jail if he would reveal it. When he does end up killing himself the youngest brother ends up in shock, not able to talk, and the other brother, the way too clever eleven-year-old Mark Sway (Brad Renfro) becomes the central witness for a court case. Both the prosecutor (Tommy Lee Jones) and the mob suspect that he might have information which could be deciding in the case. It means Mark is in danger and he asks for help from Regina “Reggie” Love (Susan Sarandon), a lawyer who gets in way deeper than she was planning to.
The film is based on a book by John Grisham and during the nineties many of his books were turned into movies. These often were worth watching, but this one is less effective. The members of the mob are overly bad, making them feel like caricatures. The same is the case with the prosecutor. Although Tommy Lee Jones is fine in his role it has been written like an evil one. Brad Renfro plays his character Mark as one which will annoy you and it is only Sarandon’s lawyer you really care about. The story has its moments, but too many feel unnatural. It might not be a really bad movie, but it doesn’t belong to the best in the genre.
I saw this ages ago, can’t remember much about it except that I remember Brad Renfro was once a promising young actor. Well the fact that I couldn’t remember much about the plot should tell you it didn’t make that much impression on me, ahah.