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Very well executed

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Certainly not a cheerful movie or the best of Grisham adaptations, The Chamber still has some merits. Chris O'Donnell looks a lot like Matt Damon (who ended up stealing his thunder) and plays Adam Hall, the lawyer grandson of Cayhall, a racist, convicted murder, waiting for his execution in a Mississippi jail. Hackman plays Sam Cayhall, gran-dad in death row with not a soft bone in his old body - or has he?Hackman's interpretation is amazingly good. His Cayhall is an ignorant brute who lost his youth and family to the demented ideas of the KKK and now feels betrayed by his ancient friends, but still reluctant to let go of his foolish beliefs. Cayhall is truly a tragic figure, an ignorant man, manipulated for purposes he was too stupid to understand and sacrificed by more powerful players. One cannot avoid feeling repelled, yet sorry for him.Dunaway is Lee, Cayhal's alcoholic daughter and - obviously - Adam's aunt. The main problem is that Dunaway was too old for the part. She does a decent job and has a heartbreaking goodbye scene with Hackman - really well acted and not fake or manipulative. However, she is only 11 years younger than Hackman and she was not believable as his daughter. I guess somebody like Patricia Clarkson or Susan Sarandon would have been a better choice.Anyway, for once I think that the 6 in IMDb is a fair vote. The story is too depressing, O'Donnell does not carry enough weight for such a difficult part, Dunaway was too old and the script is very uninspired. To be seen mainly for Hackman's amazing interpretation.

I found myself thinking in bullet points so here it is:1.Gene Hackman gives a solid performance, the rest of the cast are competent but the Adam Hall character could do with a better actor - less mechanical, more believable with a broader range of emotion. 2.An interesting story although it never really grabbed me and there are better ways to spend ninety minutes. 3.I'm sure the book reads well and the movie might well have been more watchable if Nicholson and Pitt hadn't withdrawn. 4.This is an old theme and if you've seen the theme before it reduces the entertainment value of the film. 5. The technology of the day should means that you shouldn't have to strain to hear the actors' mumbling, but you do - and no, it's not my hearing, age or TV to blame, I watch a lot of films.All in all, disappointing, sadly.

Schock-free, little suspense and a absolutely horrible performance by Faye Dunaway. This is what this movie has going for it.A grandson fights for his racist grandfather's life. This could have been interesting but we get little to no insight about the back story which led to the event. I will reveal that it has something to do with a murder and the grandfather about to get the gas chamber. I don't think it will spoil anyones enjoyment of the film or vice versa.The problem is that Gene Hackman as the grandfather is such a underwritten character and he is not portrayed enough as the monster he is supposed to be. Yes, he is a white supremacist and his own family resented him for it, but he comes off much too sympathetic as the plot goes along. He yells and resists at first, he mocks his liberal grandson and that's about it.Chris O'Donnell as the grandson doesn't really register either. We know his motivation but we don't really feel his pain of learning where he comes from. Again, the script is severely underwritten on his part.Then the worst of all. The daughter, played by Faye Dunaway. There is a scene at the end between Hackman and Dunaway that is so false, so unintentionally hilarious that I almost shut the film off.The ending is sad but it doesn't have enough emotional power either. Because Hackman has neither been portrayed as a total monster, nor has he been portrayed as monster with a heart, we could care less if he lives or dies.

Based on a novel by John Grisham, The Chamber deals with a man trying to come to terms with his family and their ugly secrets.It stars Chris O'Donnell and Gene Hackman together with Faye Dunaway,Lela Rochon,Robert Prosky,Raymond J. Barry,David Marshall Grant and Bo Jackson in his first film debut. The film was written by William Goldman and directed by James Foley.Adam Hall is a successful attorney based in Chicago who travels to Mississippi to look into the case of Sam Cayhall. An outspoken racist and member of the Ku Klux Klan, Cayhall was convicted in the early '60s of the murder of a Jewish civil rights lawyer and his children. Pending a last-minute appeal, it looks as if Cayhall will finally go to the electric chair, and Adam has arrived to see what he can do. It hardly seems like the sort of case Adam would normally be involved with, until we discover Adam's secret: he is actually Cayhall's grandson, and despite his misgivings about the man's racist views, he wants to see if he can spare his life. Cayhall, however, has little use for Adam and even less regard for his legal skills. As Adam spends time with his Aunt Lee, who witnessed Cayhall's execution of a black man years ago, he gets a more complete and disturbing picture of Cayhall's race hatred and the terrible toll it has taken on his family and the community. While the old man's life lies in the balance, Adam's motivation in fighting this battle becomes clear as the story unfolds. He fights not only for his grandfather but also perhaps for himself. He has come to heal the wounds of his own father's suicide, to mitigate the secret shame he has always felt for having this man as a grandfather and to bring closure, one way or another, to the suffering the old man seems to have brought to everyone he has ever known.The film has a story has that contains enough little surprises and mysteries to stay interesting, and the talented cast to make the film was good one.Unfortunately,it has a poorly written screenplay that the viewer may find it offensive considering that racist rants are being used for clichés and for the sake of entertainment. When a sensitive subject like racism is being used,it does not entertain at all.It was a good thing that Gene Hackman,an congenial actor,was cast for the role of the racist grandfather. But as for O'Donnell,he is sincere and honest in his portrayal of a young lawyer working for his grandfather.What only makes this movie interesting is it was based from a novel by John Grisham but nothing more.