everything you have heard about this movie is true.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Between this movie and The Firm, both of which are terrible, Grisham refused to approve any screenplay he wasn't involved in. I suppose if you've never read the book the movie might have some entertainment value. If, however, you loved the book you'll find so many things wrong with this movie.

The foundation for this movie is the assassination of a couple of disparate Supreme Court justices. Their murders are on the minds of everyone in the country. A noted terrorist is involved in all of this and a character named Darby, played by Julia Roberts, sets out to find the evidence to discover the killer. That's all well and good. But what happens now is a series of murders and cover-ups and disappearances that make one need a scorecard to follow. I love more sophisticated drama and this is certainly one, but soon the President is involved. There is some land in Louisiana that is at the center of a lot of this, but because a rare breed of pelican is in danger, it becomes difficult. Even when the film is over, we don't really have it clear in our minds how things are going to play out. Some issues are settled but what's next. Roberts and Denzel Washington are quite good.

This is a solid movie. Most of the story holds together quite well, being plausible which is very important to me. There are just a few places in the story that I wish the director, Alan J. Pakula, had chosen to make a bit more believable. I won't expose those scenes because I wish to write a spoiler free review this time.I look for movies that I can believe in, written well, acted well, and most important directed well. This passes all of those tests. You can't fail with the likes of Robert Culp, although he plays a bit of a wuss here, or Julia Roberts who was well cast.Backing up the strong crew is a key character played by Denzel Washington, Tony Goldwyn, and several more big name actors. I can't imagine how they were able to attract so many stars.Alan J. Pakula has a long list of good movie credits as director. He did a great job on this story, it had some twists and turns so would have been easy to screw up.

I'm not much of a fan of either Julia Roberts or Denzel Washington. With Washington, his race always comes in to every movie he stars in, Usually with him being on the end of some form of racial abuse. As for Roberts, she just bores me. Plot in A Paragraph: Darby Shaw (Julia Roberts) a law student writes a legal brief detailing her theory on why two Supreme Court justices were assassinated and under whose orders, and shows it to her law professor, and lover Thomas Callahan (Sam Shepard). He gives a copy to his friend Gavin Verheek (John Heard) at the FBI. Before long Callaghan is dead and she reaches out to Verheek and Washington Herald reporter Gray Grantham (Denzel Washington) for help.Amazingly John Grisham wrote the part of Darby Shaw with Julia Roberts in mind. Roberts read the book once it was finished and agreed to the role without even seeing a script. I find this amazing as she is woefully miscast as a law student, as she struggles with the dialogue, and lacks any conviction as a believable law student.Made at the height of Roberts popularity and Washington was hot coming off the back of his Oscar nomination for "Malcolm X" it was a great pairing!! I think if these two made the stinker "I Love Trouble" (That Roberts followed this up with) that year it still would have been a hit!! Despite enjoying it, and some great performances, I will probably never watch this againMy race bug bearer of watching Washington came up 3 times during this movies run time! As for Roberts she continues to be a popular actress, however I lost interest in her and her movies a long time ago, I have only seen five of her movies since 2000.