I recently had the displeasure of seeing The Pelican Brief with Denzel Washington and Julia Roberts. A two hour and twenty minute movie, The Pelican Brief is every bit as agonizingly slow and boring as the book (something that shocked me, because I'm a fan of Grisham.)

Julia Roberts plays Darby Shaw, a slutty first-year law student who is sleeping with her instructor, Thomas Callahan. Two Supreme Court judges have been assassinated by a shadowy figure named Khamel. Shaw writes up a brief that she calls The Pelican Brief that implicates a big-wig oil company (go figure the oil companies are the bad guys) as having hired Khamel. Non-stop running around and lawyer-talk fill the screen as the movie thunders forward with all the excitement of watching paint dry on a wooden board. There are only two suspenseful scenes throughout the movie, both of which are done poorly, in my opinion.

Julia Roberts, as always, is a shitty actress in this movie. She has maybe two facial expressions: Doughy-eyed tear-rimmed mouth slightly open, and doughy-eyed tear-rimmed mouth closed. That's it.

Denzel, who was phenomenal in Training Day and even John Q, seems restrained and bored in this movie.

At about the half-way point, pick up a book or something so at least by the end, you can brag that you sat through the whole thing, as I intend to do.