The Client
Short description
Mark Sway is an eleven-year-old boy living in Louisiana who witnesses the suicide of Jerome Clifford, a lawyer with ties to organized crime. Before taking his own life, Clifford tells Mark something incriminating about his client, a mob killer. The boy becomes the target of both the Mafia, which wants him silenced, and federal prosecutors, who pressure him for what he knows without offering real protection for him or his family. With nowhere else to turn, Mark hires Reggie Love, a lawyer who takes on his case and puts herself at risk to keep him safe. The film is based on the novel by John Grisham.
Joel Schumacher directed the film, the seventh of 21 features he directed, following Falling Down and preceding Batman Forever. Akiva Goldsman and Robert Getchell wrote the screenplay, and Arnon Milchan and Steven Reuther produced. Brad Renfro plays Mark, with Susan Sarandon as Reggie Love and Tommy Lee Jones as Roy Foltrigg. Mary-Louise Parker, Anthony LaPaglia and Bradley Whitford appear in supporting roles. It was released in July 1994 and runs 119 minutes.
Made for about 45 million dollars, the film took in roughly 118 million worldwide, a solid return. On IMDb it holds 6.7 out of 10 from around 85,000 votes, and on TMDB it also sits at 6.7 from about 1,400 votes. A critics' score of 6.1 from 39 reviews places it slightly below those audience figures.
What's left behind the scenes
- At the time of filming, the author of the original literary work, John Grisham, had the right to approve the actors chosen for films based on his works, and he immediately stated that no professional child actors from Hollywood should be cast in the role of Mark. He believed that a well-known child actor couldn't be used for this role and that a completely unknown child was needed (preferably from the vicinity of Memphis, where the action takes place). This is how Brad Renfro, a native of Knoxville, Tennessee, was found, and he was preferred over thousands of other applicants, including Macaulay Culkin.
- Joel Schumacher (1939-2020) approached Susan Sarandon with an offer to star in his film at a restaurant in New York in the summer of 1993. She gave her consent a few days later.
- John Grisham liked the film so much that he agreed to sell the rights to adapt his novel 'A Time to Kill' (1989) on the condition that Joel Schumacher would direct it as well. The film of the same name was released in 1996. Akiva Goldsman was one of the screenwriters in both cases.
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