Brad Renfro

The Client (1994)

The Client (1994)

(In French, On TV, June 2019) It’s been so long since I read John Grisham’s The Client that I don’t really remember most of the plot, so you can say that I had an almost entirely new experience with the film adaptation. Here, a teenager having witnessed something of interest to the police and the mob is taken under a tough lawyer’s wing as she tries to negotiate a way out while outwitting both sides. If The Client works, it’s because it’s a sufficiently different riff on familiar tropes—in this case, the kid’s protector trying to protect her charge from overreach by the FBI at the same time as a very real threat from the mob. Susan Sarandon is quite good as the lawyer, flawed enough to have something to gain from the adventure. Meanwhile, Brad Renfro has a decent turn as a resourceful teenager caught between a few bad options. Tommy Lee Jones shows up as a senior FBI officer, while Mary-Louis Parker has a small role as a despondent mom. Director Joel Schumacher keeps things moving swiftly, not getting in the way of the plot-driven film. Grisham went on to write more interesting novels, but this film adaptation does the job and may seem more interesting in retrospect, as medium-budget mid-90s thrillers of the kind exemplified by The Client got much rarer in 2010s multiplexes.

Apt Pupil (1998)

Apt Pupil (1998)

(In French, On TV, December 2016) Stephen King’s Different Seasons novella collection was originally meant as a way to publishing four non-supernatural stories that King couldn’t sell, but it has ended up being the source material for three of King’s best movie adaptations. After Stand by Me and The Shawshank Redemption, here is Apt Pupil, which tells the dark story of a budding fascist teenager discovering an ex-Nazi living in his city. Things get worse when the two start jockeying for power over one another, eventually getting locked into a mutual destruction pact. Contrasting the sunny California setting with the darkest secrets within, director Bryan Singer doesn’t try to be subtle and the result is a fair thriller that allows a good actor’s duel between Brad Renfro and Ian McKellen, who’s particularly good here. The suspense set-pieces are well handled, and the film ends on a far more unnerving note than you’d expect … despite one or two big coincidences precipitating the third act. A solid thriller, Apt Pupil hasn’t aged a lot since 1998 despite ex-Nazis dying in droves since then.