The Client Poster

The Client (1994)

Crime | Mystery 
Rayting:   6.7/10 60.9K votes
Country: USA
Language: English
Release date: 18 August 1994

A young boy who witnessed the suicide of a mafia lawyer hires an attorney to protect him when the District Attorney tries to use him to take down a mob family.

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User Reviews

Spleen 31 July 1999

I don't mean to play the prig, but the kid was withholding evidence. Are we really meant to be on his side? Surely it's more rational to hope that the forces of law and order get the information out of that little pipsqueak in the end.

Of course, it's perfectly possible to sympathise with someone who's thwarting the police - under circumstances other than these. Were the police evil, or incompetent? No. Was the child at all likeable? No. Did the child have a rational reason for keeping silent? No. (By the way, his justification for all of his questionable beliefs about the wider world was, `I seen it on TV' - presumably we were meant to sigh and say, `How cute.') Did anything at all interesting or exciting happen at any point during the movie to distract us from the annoying premise? Not that I noticed.

After two hours' of static stand-off there is a contrived ending - the child and his lawyer don't say, `Well, I suppose we'd better do SOMETHING to resolve the plot, such as it is,' but what they do say is almost as lame. I don't think anyone was even trying.

Cantoris-2 20 December 1998

Fmovies: Mark Sway is a real hero here, although he is not only a mere child, but a disadvantaged child in the middle of adult power structures breathtaking in their deviousness and casual cruelty. The theme of youngsters forced by circumstances into adult roles and responsibilities, particularly in being more level-headed and mature than their parent(s) has become as strikingly common in contemporary literature as it was strikingly uncommon until about a generation ago. But there are ample parallels to real life in pre-Romantic history. It is really our modern assumptions of prolonged childhood and adolescence which are abnormal in the fuller perspective of human experience. Aren't we on the verge of these concepts' retreating from the apogees to which western culture pushed them in the 19th and early 20th centuries?

If so, this film is on the cusp of the trend. Yet it might never have worked but for the director's good fortune in locating Brad Renfro for the lead role. What a find! His earthy, protean spunk and obliviousness to any cute brown-nosing towards his elders, simply because they are elders, make him entirely convincing in the part. He is, I hope, on his way to being a great actor, but perhaps it will continue to be this film which shows his freshness most clearly.

Not that it isn't very taut cinema in other regards. The build up of drama in the opening scenes is superb, with acting, cinematography, and the score all combining to provide a seamless experience. As one critic put it, it starts like a house afire, and the fire never goes out. This is a film one can see again and again, noticing additional fine touches each time.

g-bodyl 22 December 2012

The Client is a good film with moments of extreme greatness especially for a courtroom thriller such as this. But there are also scenes where they should have been added into the editing room. The film was excellent in the beginning, slows to a crawl in the middle, and picks up in the end. If it stayed like the beginning, this film would have been flawless.

After a 11-year-old kid and his brother witnessed a suicide, the kid hires an attorney to help protect him and his family from threatening mafia members and a stubborn Federal District attorney.

The acting is very good in this film. Susan Sarandon seemed like she was born to play this role. She was just perfect! For a kid who never acted before, Brad Renfro was brilliant as the snobby 11-year-old.

Overall, this is a slightly above-average crime thriller. Sarandon steals the show as her role of the attorney. Joel Schumacher directed a masterpiece compared to the Batman films he would take over after this film. I rate this film 8/10.

Silverzero 17 March 2003

The Client fmovies. "The Client" is an enjoyable and well executed thriller overall. While the directing, script and overall product are far from amazing and sometimes quite bland, the Oscar level performances compensate for the easily over-seeable flaws.

Perhaps the child of the title, Brad Renfro, can be annoying in parts he gives a decent enough performance nonetheless. Too bad about the drinks and drugs problem he has today. Susan Sarandon gives another terrific performance, this time as an alcoholic lawyer. Tommy Lee Jones' character doesn't have much to do with the plot but he's a welcome addition to the film, even though.

While it is easy to find fault with the film it's easier to just sit back and enjoy it. I chose the latter so I thought it was a good, if not spectacular movie overall. 6.8/10.

Cal-37 3 September 1999

I want to address some of the major holes in the plot, so if you haven't seen the movie yet you may want to skip this review.

Why would the mob assume that this lawyer, who was about to commit suicide, would be telling the kid anything regarding the dead body? That's a pretty big assumption to make. OK, so assuming that they did guess right, i.e. the kid now knows everything, why do they think scaring him will keep him from talking? Wouldn't it be more final just to bump him off in the elevator when they have the perfect opportunity? But no, let's threaten him only, still giving him the chance to spill his guts to the authorities.

But the little jerk can't just tell what he knows, and let the authorities sort it out. He and his stupid lawyer decide that they must go and see the body for themselves, to be sure that the suicide committing lawyer wasn't lying in the first place. Yeah, right. That makes perfect sense. Let's break into the dead lawyers boathouse, and see if the rotting corpse is there, then maybe he'll testify.

rmax304823 20 October 2004

Wow, what a cast! And they all deliver the goods too. Susan Sarandon is an exceptional actress. Watch the scene in "Dead Man Walking" when she visits the family of one of the victims. She doesn't just sit quietly. She actively "listens" to them. And Tommy Lee Jones uncovers the comic side of his dashing political lawyer. Even the eleven-year-old kid gives a spot on performance, anything but cute, which is a relief. The smaller roles are equally well done although there is less to be done well. J. T. Walsh is always good. Mary-Louise Parker never makes a wrong move as the stressed-out mother. Ossie Davis is a monumental presence as the judge. Bill Macy is given only a few lines.

The script isn't bad either, especially in the first half of the film, in which the characters are being established. There are, alas, three clichés.

The bad guys LOOK like move bad guys usually look. They dress in black, have long greasy hair, are engraved with threatening jailhouse tattoos of barbed wire and things, and they never seem to enjoy themselves.

There are also two stereotypical scenes which really should have been avoided. In the first, the boy, Renfro, is trying to sneak out of a hospital. He pokes his face through a door into the reception room, where he sees his mother and two cops walking around. In the shadows he also spots the man he knows is trying to murder him. So what does he do? Does he run to his Mom and the police for protection? Certainly not. He does what aay potential murder victim would do. He dashes away from safety, down several flights of an empty stairway, followed closely by the squinter with a knife. The scene that follows is lifted straight out of "Coma," with the killer being locked in a refrigerator.

The other stereotyped situation is towards the end, when (just by the most improbable of coincidences) Sarandon and Renfro reach an empty boat house at the same time as three of the heavies. The two innocents try to avoid being discovered. There is a lot of tiptoeing around on creaky boards, a foot chase through some bushes, one of those scenes in which one person holds a gun on a second, and the second smiles and says, "You don't have the guts to pull the trigger," and walks up closer to the muzzle.

I've pointed out these weaknesses not because this is a bad movie. It's really pretty good. But the cast is so outstanding that any weakness in the story is the more highly illuminated.

See it, if only to see the range of facial expressions into which Jones is able to fashion his face.

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