THE FIRM (1993)

THE FIRM (R) A big, cumbersome, rousing adaptation of John Grisham's 1991 page turner. Mitch McDeere (Tom Cruise), a brilliant Harvard Law School senior, is recruited by a posh Memphis firm that turns out to have ties to the mob. In a movie like this one, the surprises are everything, and director Sydney Pollack lets the plot unfold with maximal tension-at least, until the chaotic midsection, when events start coming at us in a dizzying rush. Still, the film recovers in its audacious, if farfetched, finale. At the story's heart is an elaborate, sci-fi-like view of blue-blooded corporate devils trapping their young associates in Faustian webs. No one is going to confuse The Firm with art, but as powered by Grisham's twisty plot and a tip-top cast of character actors (including Gene Hackman, Holly Hunter, Ed Harris, and David Strathairn), it retools the Hollywood conspiracy genre for an era of warmed- over yuppie solipsism. B ( 178, July 9) -OG

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