Word: mitcheli
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Bendini, Lambert and Locke pay off McDeere's student loans, buy him a house and lease him a car. It's the perfect job--until Mitch begins to wonder why no lawyer has ever left the firm alive, and why four lawyers have died mysteriously in the past few years. His investigation soon threatens his integrity as a lawyer and eventually, his life...
...book-to-movie purists will have some problems with director Sydney Pollack's big-screen version. For the first two-thirds of the movie, the basic framework of the book's plot is retained, but the intervening details are changed. Readers who enjoyed the plumbing of Mitch's thoughts will be disappointed--we see only Cruise's actions. Some scenes are left in. Others are cut. Still others, such as a free-flowing montage of the offers Mitch receives from other law firms upon graduation, are nowhere to be found in the book...
...biggest departure from the original blueprint is in the last third. Grisham's detached, careful trail to an explosive conclusion is replaced by direct, face-to-face confrontations in which Mitch and the others involved are in physical danger. The Mafia are portrayed as merely a client of the firm--an important client, to be sure, but not one with familial ties. The ending, which I won't give away, is also...
Grisham reportedly was very unhappy about the changes. He shouldn't have been, though. For the reworking of "The Firm" solves almost all of the holes in the original plot. Mitch's brief infidelity in the Cayman Islands is a much more explosive issue here. Mitch and Abby's estrangement, which leads to her helping Mitch without his knowledge, adds additional emotional punch to the plot...
...method Mitch uses to solve his dilemma is also much more plausible--and clever. As in the book, he plays both sides off each other. In the movie, however, the gravity of the consequences of full cooperation with the FBI--disbarment, career termination, etc.--are much more vivid, and Mitch's determination to follow his oath as a lawyer while getting free of the firm is powerfully portrayed...