This adaptation of John Grisham's first novel cleaned up at the box office and propelled the then unknown Matthew McConaughey to the front rank of Hollywood stars. McConaughey plays an inexperienced southern lawyer defending a working-class black father (Samuel L Jackson) who publicly murdered the man who abducted and raped his ten-year-old daughter. Sandra Bullock is the enthusiastic law student who offers to help McConaughey. In the redneck corner are politically ambitious district attorney Kevin Spacey and most of the small town of Clanton, Mississippi, where the Ku Klux Klan exerts a sinister influence. McConaughey makes a good fist of the lead role, but, as with most Grisham adaptations, the real strength is in the supporting turns - Spacey, Jackson, Donald and Kiefer Sutherland, Chris Cooper and Oliver Platt are all superb. It's a bit too long, but, as most lawyers charge by the hour, why should that be a surprise?

A young lawyer defends a black man accused of murdering two white men who raped his 10-year-old daughter, sparking a rebirth of the KKK.