Tonight's Movie: The Pelican Brief (1993)

A few days ago I finally caught up with THE PELICAN BRIEF (1993), starring Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington.I've always liked Roberts a great deal, and I enjoy Washington as well, but this film came out during a period in my life when I had young children and saw very few new-to-me films.Consequently there are still many films from that era which I'm only now seeing for the first time. Another example is THE PAPER (1994) which I saw earlier this year. The silver lining is it's fun to finally see films I missed "back in the day"!THE PELICAN BRIEF was written and directed by Alan J. Pakula based on the novel by John Grisham.As the movie begins, two Supreme Court justices are assassinated. (The shocking nature of this is somewhat underplayed, particularly given what follows.) An inquisitive young law student, Darby Shaw (Roberts), researches what the justices had in common in their court rulings and puts together a brief on what the motive may have been for the killings.Darby gives…