Moral Issues in Film: a Time to Kill

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Moral Issues in Film: A Time to Kill Joseph Fusaro Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Moral Issues in Film: A Time to Kill The film A Time to Kill takes us on an arduous journey of moral and ethical proportions. The movie, based on the book of the same title by author John Grisham, tells the captivating story about race, equality, vengeance and justice. The story begins with a young Southern attorney that acts as defense lawyer for a black father who kills two white men for raping and nearly killing his 10 year old daughter. Carl Lee Hailey is a Mississippi mill worker whose life gets flipped upside down when two racist hillbillies abduct and brutally rape his 10 year old Tonya. Shortly after grieving for the loss of his daughter’s innocence, Carl Lee seeks counsel with the lawyer Jake Brigance. They discuss a similar case where four white men raped a black girl and were set free. Knowing that that these two men could more than likely walk free, Carl Lee takes justice into his own hands and shoots both men down including his childhood friend deputy Dwayne Looney. Carl Lee is immediately arrested and put on trial for the murder of the two white men. As the story continues, Carl Lee hires on Jake Brigance who valiantly accepts the case knowing the dangers and challenges involved in obtaining it. After facing financial and perilous hardships Jake decides he can’t do this trial on his own. He hires on an eager attractive law student Ellen Roark, his alcoholic law school advisor Lucien Wilbanks, and his friend Harry Vonner. Together this team sets out to prove that temporary insanity led Carl Lee to the killings. The trail erupts as protests between the Ku Klux Klan and civil rights activists such as the NAACP try to manage the legal proceedings. Although the road that lies ahead is a rocky one, Carl Lee and Jake must find a way to make justice prevail by
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