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Sandra Bullock, Samuel L. Jackson, and Matthew McConaughey in A Time to Kill (1996)

FAQ

A Time to Kill

FAQ



    No it isn't...



    Jake Tyler Brigance (Matthew McConaughey) wears a John Mellencamp "Whenever We Want" tour T-shirt in the 1996 movie A Time to Kill.



    When two white supremacists Pete Willard (Doug Hutchison) and Billy Ray Cobb (Nicky Katt) brutally rape Tonya Hailey (RaéVen Kelly), a 10-year-old black girl in rural Canton, Mississippi, her distraught father Carl Lee (Samuel L. Jackson), figuring the boys will simply be set free due to the deep-seated racism in the Mississippi Delta area, takes justice into his own hands, shoots Willard and Cobb, and hires Jake Brigance (Matthew McConaughey), a young white lawyer, to defend him against the charge of murder. Aided by his former law professor Lucien Wilbanks (Donald Sutherland), fellow attorney Harry Rex Vonner (Oliver Platt), and law student Ellen Roark (Sandra Bullock) from the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) at Oxford, MS, Brigance is hindered by tough D.A. Rufus Buckley (Kevin Spacey) and a rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan.



    Yes. The film is based on the 1989 novel A Time to Kill by American author John Grisham, who claims to have gotten the idea in 1984 when he overheard a 12-year-old white girl telling the court how she and her sister were raped and beaten by a black man. Grisham swapped races, and added to it the fictional situation in which the girl's father subsequently murdered her assailants. The novel was adapted for the screen by American filmmaker Akiva Goldsman.

Alexa top questions

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  • How long is A Time to Kill?
    2 hours and 29 minutes
  • When was A Time to Kill released?
    July 24, 1996
  • What is the IMDb rating of A Time to Kill?
    7.5 out of 10
  • Who stars in A Time to Kill?
    Matthew McConaughey, Sandra Bullock, and Samuel L. Jackson
  • Who wrote A Time to Kill?
    John Grisham and Akiva Goldsman
  • Who directed A Time to Kill?
    Joel Schumacher
  • Who was the composer for A Time to Kill?
    Elliot Goldenthal
  • Who was the producer of A Time to Kill?
    John Grisham, Arnon Milchan, Hunt Lowry, and Michael G. Nathanson
  • Who was the cinematographer for A Time to Kill?
    Peter Menzies Jr.
  • Who was the editor of A Time to Kill?
    William Steinkamp
  • Who are the characters in A Time to Kill?
    Jake Tyler Brigance, Ellen Roark, Carl Lee Hailey, D.A. Rufus Buckley, Harry Rex Vonner, Sheriff Ozzie Walls, Ethel Twitty, Lucien Wilbanks, Freddie Lee Cobb, Judge Omar Noose, and others
  • What is the plot of A Time to Kill?
    A young Mississippi lawyer defends a black man who killed the two white men that raped his preteen daughter.
  • What was the budget for A Time to Kill?
    $40 million
  • How much did A Time to Kill earn at the worldwide box office?
    $152 million
  • How much did A Time to Kill earn at the US box office?
    $109 million
  • What is A Time to Kill rated?
    R
  • What genre is A Time to Kill?
    Crime Drama, Crime, Drama, and Thriller
  • How many awards has A Time to Kill won?
    7 awards
  • How many awards has A Time to Kill been nominated for?
    19 nominations

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Sandra Bullock, Samuel L. Jackson, and Matthew McConaughey in A Time to Kill (1996)
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