You can read the plot synopsis but the point is missed on people from NYC and LA. This goes to the heartland and explains how discreet government corruption can hurt us badly. Its also illustrates why "obstruction of justice" is such an important law and why (now) Donald Trump should be deposed and thrown out. Just remember the truism, "if one lies about small things, they will like about big things too"

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.

Interestingly, about 13 years after the release of the original novel "The Pelican Brief" by John Grisham which centers around the investigations and theories involving the assassinations of two Supreme Court Justices, two Supreme Court Justices' careers also ended close to the same time. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor announced her plans to retire in the summer of 2005 which was followed by the unexpected death of William Rehnquist in the Fall of the same year. It's always a bit spooky when real life follows fiction, although as far as is known, the departure of Rehnquist and O'Connor had nothing to do with "foul play" or political currents, or did it?In "The Pelican Brief", two diametrically opposed Supreme Court Justices, Rosenberg and Jensen, are assassinated by unknown assailants for unknown reasons. Rosenberg was an aging liberal whose days on the court were probably numbered. Jensen was a conservative in the prime of his judicial career. While the first assassination is advantageous to the current sitting US President who we learn is a Republican, the second assassination makes no sense in terms of the first. At a law school near New Orleans, an ambitious young law student, Darby Shaw (played with unending believability by Julia Roberts) is dating one of her law professors, Thomas Callahan (Sam Shepherd). After both professor and student learn of the assassinations, Darby decides she can crack the case. (Callahan had interned with Rosenberg when he was a law student.) While law enforcement believes the assassinations were probably enacted as revenge by a disillusioned losing party in a former case, Shaw decides to research deeper to unearth something political which Rosenberg and Jensen might have had in common. She engages in her own investigation of sorts and writes an essay on her findings, a "brief".She passes her brief to Callahan who doesn't take it too seriously. He takes a trip to Washington D.C. to attend the funeral of Rosenberg where he meets a former classmate, Gavin Verheek (John Heard), who now works in the legal department of the FBI. Callahan offers the brief to Verheek who in turn passes into the FBI. The FBI begins believing the brief is a much more serious theory of the assassinations than either Callahan or Verheek had realized, and the brief ends up in the hands of the president.Back in New Orleans, Darby is fearing for her life when tragedy suddenly strikes. She believes the brief has opened up a kind of Pandora's Box and doesn't know who's after her nor whose after some of the people around her. Is it the CIA or another secret organization which has decided to kill her because of the brief? She contacts Washington D.C. political reporter Gray Grantham (Denzel Washington) to help her. The plot then becomes about whether Darby and Gray can confirm the theory of the brief before they are assassinated themselves, like the Supreme Court Justices.A very well-done and spot-on political thriller, all from the mind of John Grisham. Julia Roberts is 100% convincing as Darby Shaw, the-opinionated-law-student-turned-political-target whose brief is shaking the foundations of the political hierarchy at the highest levels. Washington is equally as intense as Gray Grantham, a "Woodstein"-type reporter trying to get to the bottom of political corruption wherever it festers. A few name talents appear in smaller roles, notably Hume Cronyn as Justice Rosenberg and John Lithgow as Smith Keen, editor of Grantham's newspaper the Washington Herald. A compelling film from start to finish with an outstanding cast.

Really f*cking convoluted, is what the title of my review should be, but I got class. Very few pelicans are in this movie, oh, pelicans are a type of bird, they are actually pretty cool if you research them. No pelican was paid to appear in this movie, that's the main thing I hope you take away with you from my review of this movie. A brief, as in like the title of this movie The Pelican Brief, refers to underwear, specifically men's underwear, but the only person in the movie shown wearing underwear is Julia Roberts, who is a lady, and they don't even show her underwear other than her bra! Science! I like birds, I think birds are amazing. Enclosed with this review is a hand drawn map of buried pirate treasure.