Line #27 Film/ThePelicanBrief


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_pelican_brief_movie_poster.jpg]]
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3	''The Pelican Brief'' is a 1993 thriller film directed by Creator/AlanJPakula, starring Creator/JuliaRoberts and Creator/DenzelWashington. It is based on the Creator/JohnGrisham novel published the year before.
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5	The film is about a law student named Darby Shaw (Roberts) who writes a speculative brief regarding the assassinations of two Supreme Court justices. After showing it to her mentor/lover and his friend, they end up getting killed and she goes on the run. Darby seeks help from a newspaper reporter named Gray Grantham (Washington), and together the two set out to prove the brief correct.
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8	!!Tropes seen in this film include:
9	* AdaptationDyeJob[=/=]DyeOrDie: Averted. Darby wears wigs in the movie, whereas in the book, she repeatedly cuts and colors her hair to disguise her appearance. Probably to exploit Creator/JuliaRoberts' then-famous red hair.
10	* TheAlcoholic: Thomas is shown day-drinking a fairly tall glass of straight liquor at home while Darby questions him about his returning to work, as well as how his drinking may affect his depression. Just moments before his death he is getting obnoxiously wasted in public and attempting to drive drunk.
11	* AmoralAttorney: Par for the course in a Creator/JohnGrisham story. An evil law firm not unlike one in [[Literature/TheFirm another Grisham work]] factors in as minions to the BigBad.
12	* TheBigEasy: Several scenes were shot at typical filming locations in New Orleans, mostly in and around the French Quarter and Bourbon Street.
13	* CarBomb: How the villains intend to kill Darby--but get her boyfriend instead. Also how they try to kill her and Gray in the film. Luckily, when Gray tries to start the car, Darby recognizes the sound of the faltering engine from the first incident and is able to stop him.
14	* CorruptCorporateExecutive: The BigBad is revealed by the eponymous brief to be [[spoiler: an oil baron hoping to influence the court in a pending appeal of an environmental lawsuit by means of [[MurderIsTheBestSolution an awful lot of murder]]]].
15	* CoverIdentityAnomaly: Averted. When posing as the widow of the murdered Whistle-blower lawyer, Garcia, in order to get into the safety deposit box where Garcia stashed his video testimonial, Darby is asked the widow and her husband's name, date of birth, and social security numbers. She rattles off all of them instantly except the husband's social security number, which she has written down and passes over to the bank clerk. The last is justified by very few people, even spouses, knowing anyone's social security number but their own.
16	* DisposableWoman: gender-flipped. Darby's law professor boyfriend gets killed off, kicking off her involvement in the storyline. Aside from her remembering the sound of the faulty ignition, he has no other impact on the movie.
17	* FalseRapeAccusation: Fleeing from one of the hitmen, Darby runs into a group of men and screams to them that he's trying to rape her. This is explicitly said in the novel, whereas in the movie, she merely pleads for help. In both mediums, they beat the guy up.
18	* FollowThatCar: Gray tries to do this in the film, only to [[FailingATaxi have the cab he intended to get into drive off without him]] (possibly spooked by the sight of a black man in a hoodie). Then it's inverted later in the film when he does get a cab, yet quickly realizes ''he's'' the one being followed.
19	* TheGhost: In the movie, Victor Mattiece is mentioned a lot, but only shows up in a black and white newspaper photograph.
20	* {{Greed}}: Faced with the question of why somebody would want to assassinate two Supreme Court justices with very dissimilar judicial philosophies, Darby decides to look for a more mundane motivation behind the killings. [[spoiler: She supposes (correctly) in her brief that the killings were simply about money/power. The justices were killed because both had a history of ruling against business to protect the environment, and likely would have ruled against Victor Mattiece’s efforts to drill Louisiana crude oil at the expense of a federal nature preserve home to an endangered species of pelican. Mattiece has to kill the Supreme Court Justices ''now'', rather than waiting for the two oldest to die off naturally, because by that time another President could be in the White House - one who wasn't friendly with Mattiece or held similar positions on the environment.]]
21	* HeKnowsTooMuch: The bad guys are out to kill Darby (and later, Gray along with her) when her legal brief pinpoints the precise reason why the two Supreme Court Justices were murdered and assume she figured out their plan.
22	** Gray's informant Garcia also.
23	* HelloAttorney: Or law student, in Darby's case.
24	* HoistByHisOwnPetard[=/=]LaserGuidedKarma: After failing to kill Darby with ''another'' CarBomb, in the film the villain tries to run her down in his own car. . .and crashes into the one he rigged to explode. KABOOM.
25	* INeverToldYouMyName: When Gray slips up and asks his informant "Garcia" if the other lawyers at his firm are giving him a hard time, Garcia flips out and asks how he could have known that he worked at a law firm as he never told him. Gray hurriedly (and truthfully) assures him that it was just an educated guess based on the things that Garcia has already told him, but it's too late--the already nervous Garcia is even ''more'' spooked and cuts off contact.
26	* ImminentDangerClue: The sound the starter makes before the car bomb goes off. Darby heard it when her teacher/lover was killed, and hearing it again prevents her and Gray from falling victim to another one.
27	* ItsAlwaysMardiGrasInNewOrleans: Darcy flees from a would-be killer into a carnival-type celebration. It pays off--she not only loses him in the large crowd, the amount of people around deters him from trying to harm her.
28	* LikesOlderMen: Darby is sleeping with her much older, yet wise and ruggedly attractive professor Thomas Callahan.
29	* MakeItLookLikeAnAccident: [[spoiler: By the time Grantham and Darby track him down, Curtis Morgan has already been murdered by the conspiracy and his death passed off as a mugging.]]
30	* MinorCrimeRevealsMajorPlot: Investigation into the assassination of an environmentalist attorney -> pointing out a (purely conjectural) connection between this assassination and the death of two judges who agreed with him in a civil case to prevent drilling in a protected land -> murderous conspiracy by an oil magnate to get oil by hook or by crook, with allies all the way up to the Director of the FBI and ''the President of the United States''.
31	* PresidentEvil: The President orders the death of Shaw because she accidentally connected Mattiece to the murders of the judges, and Mattiece is connected to him.
32	* RaceLift: Gray is white in the book and black in the movie.
33	* RelationshipUpgrade: Inverted. Darby and Gray's relationship remains platonic, rather than the RidingIntoTheSunset ending of the book.
34	* RevealingCoverup: The brief in question was pure conjecture, 100% free of substantiating proof, before the villains heard of it and tried to have her killed to hush it up. Even ''Darby'' didn't really believe it, it was just a fun paper [[note]]in law school it's called a "hypothetical", written for practice[[/note]] and had the conspiracy just ignored it, it would have faded away. The attempts on her life make Darby realize she's actually onto something.
35	* SafetyInMuggles: As stated in the "Mardi Gras" post.
36	* ShoutOut: When Gray and Darby meet with the FBI men, Director Voyles says "So you're the little lady who started this great brouhaha." Voyles is paraphrasing UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln greeting [[Literature/UncleTomsCabin Harriet Beecher Stowe]], "So you're the little woman who wrote the book that started [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar this great war]]." Darby [[DeadpanSnarker Deadpan Snarks]] "I think you have me confused with a friend of the president."
37	* TeacherStudentRomance: Darby and her College Law teacher. It's what gets him killed in the first place.
38	* WavingSignsAround: Both the novel and the film open with people waving signs around saying stuff like "Death to Rosenberg," "Retire Rosenberg," and "Cut off the oxygen," the last of those being Rosenberg's [[ActuallyPrettyFunny favorite]]. There's another protest shown near the film's end, this one concerning gun rights.
39	* WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue: Gray Grantham prints the story and becomes a household name. Victor Mattice is indicted for the assassinations. The POTUS goes down for having ordered the FBI off the case. However, Darby Shaw instead chooses to flee the country to an unspecified location - which gives rise to a conspiracy theory that she never existed at all, and is merely a pseudonym for all of Grantham's sources; that ''he'' wrote the Brief.
40	-->'''Interviewer''': Okay Gray, you know that in view of all this, you know that there's a lot of speculation that this woman is a figment of your imagination. That you created her, from a lot of different sources. Just as there are people who believe there was no [[{{Scandalgate}} Deep Throat]], there are those who believe that there is no Darby Shaw. In other words, she's just too good to be true.\
41	'''Gray Grantham''': She almost is.

Context Film / ThePelicanBrief