The Firm DVD cover

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. Image File history File links File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Image File history File links File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... The legal thriller is a sub-genre of the detective story in which the major characters are lawyers and their employees. ... Thriller films are movies that primarily use action and suspense to engage the audience. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1993 is a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and marked the Beginning of the International Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination (1993-2003). ... Sydney Pollack (born July 1, 1934 in Lafayette, Indiana) is an American actor, producer, and director. ... Jump to: navigation, search Tom Cruise as seen on a poster for the 2001 film Vanilla Sky Tom Cruise (born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV July 3, 1962 in Syracuse, New York, USA) is an American Scientologist, actor and producer who has starred in a number of top-grossing movies. ... Jeanne Tripplehorn (born June 10, 1963 in Tulsa, Oklahoma) is an American film actress. ... Jump to: navigation, search Gene Hackman Eugene Alden Hackman (born 30 January 1930) is an Oscar winning American actor. ... Ed Harris Edward Allen Ed Harris (born November 28, 1950) is an American actor. ... Holly Hunter (born March 20, 1958) is an American actress. ... William Gary Busey (born June 29, 1944 in Goose Creek, Texas) is an American film actor. ... David Russell Strathairn (born on January 26, 1949 in San Francisco, California of Scottish and Hawaiian extraction) is an American film and television actor. ... The Firm is a 1991 legal thriller and the second novel by John Grisham. ... Jump to: navigation, search Grishams 2005 Novel The Broker John Grisham, Jonathan Bommes (born February 8, 1955) is a retired attorney, American novelist and author best known for his works of modern legal drama. ...

Tagline: Power can be murder to resist.

Plot summary

Mitch McDeere has just qualified third in his class in Harvard law school and is in demand by all the big law firms. But the best offer comes from a relatively small firm in Memphis, which he accepts. Harvard, see Harvard (disambiguation) Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA and a member of the Ivy League. ... Jump to: navigation, search Memphis is a city in Shelby County, Tennessee, of which it is the county seat. ...

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 plan 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. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is a Federal police force which is the principal investigative arm of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). ... Jump to: navigation, search The Mafia, also referred to in Italian as La Cosa Nostra (variously translated as This Thing Of Ours or Our Thing), is the name for a secret criminal organization which evolved in mid-19th century Sicily, and led to an offshoot on the East Coast of...

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 goes on the run with Abby, his wife, and now-released Brother.

The FBI get their long-awaited documents and raid the Firm.

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 simply gets into his car and drives 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.

External link

• The Firm at the Internet Movie Database