The Firm (film)

The Firm is a legal thriller film released in 1993, directed by Sydney Pollack, and starring Tom Cruise, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Gene Hackman, Ed Harris, Holly Hunter, Gary Busey, and David Strathairn. The movie is based on the novel, The Firm, by author John Grisham.

Plot

Mitch McDeere has just qualified in the top 5 in his class at Harvard Law School and is in demand by all the big law firms. But the best offer (the highest offer plus 20%, or $96,000) comes from Bendini, Lambert & Locke, a relatively small firm in Memphis, which he accepts.

He settles in, works hard and starts earning big money, with a mortgage and car paid by the firm. His future seems rosy indeed — until he is approached by the FBI. They reveal that the Firm is a front for the Mafia and does all the crime family's legal work, engages in corruption, money laundering and has engaged in murder. The FBI plans to get information, without which they cannot get the indictments they need, but for this they need an insider. And Mitch, as the newest associate, has been chosen.

Desperate, and with no options open to him, Mitch plans a way to copy and deliver documents from secret files, including some stored in the Cayman Islands. In return, he demands that the FBI give him protection and a big monetary payout. He also wants his brother out of jail, where he's serving a long sentence for manslaughter.

Little does Mitch know that his house and car have been bugged by the firm. So with both the Firm's hired goons and FBI on to him, he copies the files and gathers enough evidence against the firm. However, in the end, he only gives the FBI lists of mail fraud that the company did (which is a lot because for each instance, there is a $10,000 fine and 3-5 years in prison), including each of the partners. He doesn't turn over the information on the Mafia, because they are his clients. Mitch gives the money to other people. The agent asks him why he did it, he didn't get anything out of it. Mitch replies, "yeah I did, I got my life back."

The Novel vs. The Film

The film follows the book in most respects, but changes the ending. Mitch doesn't end up in the Caribbean, as in the book; he and his wife simply get into their vehicle and drive away from Memphis.

A more fundamental departure from the book is the motives and manner in which Mitch extricates himself from his predicament. In the book, Mitch is unconcerned about scrupulously following the ethics required by lawyers in the United States. By copying the information and giving it to the FBI, he acknowledges to himself that he is betraying the lawyer-client privilege. Rather than dwell on this fact, accepting that he will not be allowed to practice law anywhere again, he shrewdly swindles $10 million from the mob law firm, along with receiving the $2 million from the FBI for his cooperation. He then disappears with Abby to the Caribbean.

In the film, apparently in order to preserve the personal integrity of the protagonist, Mitch steals no money from The Firm, and instead, exposes a systematic overbilling scheme by The Firm, thus driving a wedge between the Mafia and its law firm. This dramatically alters the character of the Mitch McDeere created by Grisham. Rather than capitalizing on his circumstances for personal gain, as in the book, the movie's Mitch McDeere ends up battered and bruised, but with his integrity and professional ethics intact.

In the novel Mitch also never tells his wife about his affair.

List of characters

• Mitch McDeere (Tom Cruise) – protagonist; recent Harvard Law graduate
• Abigail "Abby" McDeere (Jeanne Tripplehorn) – Mitch's wife
• Avery Tolar (Gene Hackman) – Mitch's mentor at the Firm
• Lamar Quinn (Terry Kinney) –
• Oliver Lambert (Hal Holbrook) – senior partner at the Firm
• Tammy Hemphill (Holly Hunter) – Eddie's old secretary, helps Mitch get and copy the files
• Ray McDeere (David Strathairn) – Mitch's brother, in jail for a manslaughter conviction
• William Devasher (Wilford Brimley) – head of security at the Firm
• Eddie Lomax (Gary Busey) – private investigator, friend of Ray McDeere
• Agent Wayne Tarrance (Ed Harris) – the agent in charge of the investigation into the Firm; Mitch's primary contact with the FBI
• The Nordic Man (Tobin Bell) – William Devasher's cold-blooded henchman

Trivia

• A scene where we're told that The Firm doesn't want their lawyers to have family money, that it keeps them loyal to their only source of income is shown in some trailers, but isn't in the movie.
• Gene Hackman's name did not appear in promotional material for the film. Hackman's contract called for his name to come before the title in all promotional materials (trailers, posters, etc.); Tom Cruise's contract called for his name and his name only to come before the title in all promotional materials. Hackman opted to leave his name off all promotional materials altogether, leaving his presence a surprise to most audiences. In the film itself, Hackman's name comes after Cruise's and before the title.
• The scene where Mitch McDeere meets with the Morolto mob in the Peabody Hotel was not filmed at the Peabody. The scene was filmed in a private apartment in the Shrine Building in downtown Memphis. The occupant of the apartment was paid to allow the studio to move out all of his belongings, and he stayed at the Peabody until the scene was filmed. The Peabody was not used in the scene because the hotel has an obstructed view of the Mississippi River, where as the Shrine is closer.
• Jason Patric turned down the role of Mitch, in a film that went on to become the third highest grossing film of 1993.
• The line "They don't run me, and you don't run me", spoken by Mitch, is a reference to the same line in Thief (1981), spoken by Frank (James Caan) in similar circumstances.
• The Mercedes that McDeere is given by The Firm, was given to Tom Cruise as a gift after filming finished.
• Potential directors included Lili Fini Zanuck and Kevin Reynolds, whose $3 million fee was deemed to be too high.
• One of director Sydney Pollack's original intentions was to have Mitch McDeere have an affair with an older colleague, to be played by Meryl Streep.
• Robin Wright Penn turned down the part later taken by Jeanne Tripplehorn.
• Took only 23 days to take $100 million at the US box office.
• Director Cameo: (Sydney Pollack) the priest at the funeral of one of the associates that died in the Caymans.

Taglines

• Power can be murder to resist.
• They made him an offer he should have refused.

External links

• David Strathairn Online: The Firm
• The Firm at the Internet Movie Database
• The Firm at Tom Cruise Online.com

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "The Firm (film)".