MovieChat Forums > A Time to Kill (1996) Discussion > Completely unrealistic movie, and a bad ...

Completely unrealistic movie, and a bad message at that

posted 12 years ago by star_in_the_zenith_79
42 replies | jump to latest

Several issues I have with this movie:

1. It would be a lot more believable if it was set in the 1960's, but racial tensions in the 1990's are hugely exaggerated in this movie, and I feel it completely urinates on the progress made in the area of racial harmony in this country in the last 30 years. Sends the message basically that its gotten nowhere.

2. No DA in the country in the 1990's would have sought the gas chamber against Carl Lee, thats absurd. Nor should they have. Any idiot could see he was a hurt and angry man devastated by what happened to his duaghter, not an evil and dangerous murderer.

3. Basically this sends the message that its ok for anyone to take the law into their own hands and vengeance against anyone who wrongs them.

4. The things Chris Cooper said on the stand are probably unrealistic for someone in that position. Even if he sympathized with Carl Lee for wanting to kill people who did that to his daughter, he lost a leg because of Carl Lee's reckless behaviour. For endangering other people's lives alone Carl Lee should have gotten prison time.

I just feel personally this movie promotes a backwards step in racial harmony that has come a long way in the last four decades, as well as vigilante justice. As I said, this would be a far more poignant film in the 1960's setting, 1990's, not so much.

[–] nammage 8 years ago

1. It would be a lot more believable if it was set in the 1960's, but racial tensions in the 1990's are hugely exaggerated in this movie, and I feel it completely urinates on the progress made in the area of racial harmony in this country in the last 30 years. Sends the message basically that its gotten nowhere.

Racism was alive and well in the small Southern town I grew up in the 1980s and 1990s. At my Junior High in 1990 we had a race war, it carried over to the next city over by the next year and ended. I was neutral, and tried to stay home as much as possible. See, the reason the "race war" happened was because the school board closed the next town over's Middle School because it was old and falling apart. It was a mainly black school and they were integrated into the all-white Junior High I went to. Yes, the 1990s. Most of the white kids, their parents, and some of the teachers and staff didn't like that very much.

The town I live in currently, also a small Southern town while on the outside speak a good harmonious game, whites here are just as racist as ever. Not all of them but a good deal of them. They still outnumber us non-racist whites.

2. No DA in the country in the 1990's would have sought the gas chamber against Carl Lee, thats absurd. Nor should they have. Any idiot could see he was a hurt and angry man devastated by what happened to his duaghter, not an evil and dangerous murderer.

This is utter nonsense. Of course they would. In states with the Death Penalty it's always on the table. It may come off later in a plea deal but it's always on the table in the beginning.

By the way: "racial harmony" is a fallacy because people who know reality, especially those who are usually the target of racism, wouldn't use such a phrase. While lynchings may not happen to the scale they did a long time ago, and most non-whites aren't treated as second class citizens in many places today, that doesn't mean racism is dead and gone. It's alive, and always has been and always will be. To what level is determined by the people.

-Nam

I am on the road less traveled...