Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

The Chamber Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson June 22, 2019

For seventeen hours, I listened attentively as Grover Gardner read John Grisham's fifth novel, The Chamber (1994), a meticulously woven tale of a murder case involving a young lawyer representing an old man on Death Row. The Chamber differs considerably from Grisham's novels up to that point because it's not a thriller and is more deliberate and methodical in its pacing. Because of the painstaking and prolonged attention Grisham devotes to prison life and the gas chamber, it lacks the suspense of the author's predecessors. The Chamber offers a thoroughgoing examination of the American judicial system, particularly the courts in the Deep South. Grisham's books were very popular in the mid Nineties and Universal Pictures' 1996 movie became the fifth adaptation in three years.

Adam Hall (Chris O'Donnell) is a law graduate from the University of Michigan and a junior lawyer in the Chicago-based firm, Kravitz & Bane. Senior partner E. Garner Goodman (Robert Prosky) reacts with great surprise to Adam's offer to take on the decades-old case that sentenced Klansman Sam Cayhall (Gene Hackman) to Death Row in Mississippi. Sam was twice acquitted by a hung jury for the bombing of a Jewish law firm, which maimed Marvin Kramer (Seth Isler) and killed his twin sons. Then-Attorney General David McAllister (David Marshall Grant) successfully prosecuted Sam in 1980 and currently occupies the gubernatorial office. Adam essentially takes the case pro bono and vows to do everything he can to save Sam from the chamber. Family stakes are part of this attorney-client collaboration since Adam is Sam's grandson. When the two meet for the first time, Sam is craggy, cantankerous, and every bit the anti-Semite and racist he was when he carried out that heinous crime, among many others. Because Sam is so vociferously remorseless at the evil deeds he's committed, Adam finds it increasingly difficult to make him a repentant man. The appeals courts aren't helping his case and Gov. McAllister will be hard to sway unless rock-solid new evidence is introduced. Sam's daughter, the Southern belle Lee Cayhall Bowen (Faye Dunaway), loves her nephew Adam dearly but her twenty-five-year battle with alcoholism and estrangement from Sam makes reconciliation almost impossible.

Grandfather, those cigarettes will kill you!

The Chamber was released a year after Tim Robbins's Dead Man Walking (one of this reviewer's very favorite films) and it's clear casting director Mali Finn was mindful of this since she got DMW alums Robert Prosky and Raymond J. Barry to also appear in this James Foley film. DMW is the infinitely superior of the two and The Chamber can't match Grisham's masterful treatment of death penalty cases and capital punishment in general. In one of his few leading dramatic roles for the silver screen, Chris O'Donnell is quite good as the progressive-minded, very determined young lawyer. As the racial bigot Sam Cayhall, Gene Hackman plays the antithesis to his FBI agent Anderson in Alan Parker's Mississippi Burning (1988). Sam is not endearing in any way to Adam and his recalcitrant manners toward Adam's pleas are a testament to Hackman's stalwart performance, the best in the film.

The Chamber Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

First released on a letterboxed LaserDisc in 1997 and an anamorphic DVD a year later, The Chamber at last arrives on US Blu-ray more than a dozen years after its theatrical premiere. I chose to buy the Region 2 PAL disc of The Chamber because it had better compression than the R1 but ironically, that's the problem here. Kino Studio Classics has put the 113-minute feature on a BD-25 and the MPEG-4 AVC-encoded transfer averages a bitrate of just 21462 kbps, with the total bitrate clocking in at a mean of only 26.74 Mbps. As a result, there's a loss of detail that could have been regained with better authoring. At times, the transfer looks like an upconverted DVD but overall, it boasts a clearer picture. Still, one of the problems is that it too often looks like it was shot on video with a smoothed-out image. In some ways, mosquito noise has replaced the grain. Colors are well- rendered, especially lavender (Screenshot #2), the red on Sam's jumpsuit, and the green landscape in #20. There's some light scratches, splice marks, and at least a couple of artifacts. There's still aliasing I first spotted on the DVD. You can see jagged edges along the titles in the main credits (#9).

Kino has provided eight chapter breaks. By comparison, the LD offered thirty-five and the DVD sixteen.

The Chamber Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Kino has supplied a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround (2043 kbps, 16-bit) and a downconverted DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo mix (1509 kbps, 16-bit). It's important to remember that DTS had only been around for three years when The Chamber opened in American theaters in October, 1996 and the 5.1 track here is deep and resonant. Dialogue is always audible and crisply presented. There's a big "Kaboom!" in the first reel and my home theater shook with that thunderous roar. The plane engine on the Northwest Airlines flight lifts off with terrific range and the viewer can hear it overhead. The most impressive aspect is I was able to hear footsteps down the hall and prison doors shutting on the surround channels, even though these off- screen sounds were seemingly many yards away from the grate and slit in which Adam and Sam communicated with the doors closed! Composer Carter Burwell delivers a haunting score fitting for the American South. He frequently employs guitar riffs in the fore and later brings in strings. One notable highlight is "Lady Justice" on the Varèse Sarabande soundtrack album.

The feature has been effectively subtitled with optional English SDH.

The Chamber Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Theatrical Trailer - a full-frame trailer for The Chamber that includes shots cut from the theatrical version.

• Bonus Trailers - trailers for some of Kino's other titles in its catalog.

The Chamber Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I very much enjoy watching The Chamber in spite of its downbeat tone and unsettling subject matter. Foley's film can't equal the complexity of Grisham's novel and is given the standard Hollywood treatment. As much as I admire the book, I couldn't help but yearn for a resolution to a subplot Grisham kept unresolved. On celluloid, The Chamber resolves it to some degree and I won't divulge what for those who haven't read the novel or seen the film. The Chamber went through many writing changes and both Grisham and screenwriter William Goldman were unhappy with the final product. Phil Alden Robinson was brought in for rewrites but he apparently was also displeased with how the movie turned out that he's billed as the pseudonymous "Chris Reese" in the final credits. I've read a 140-page draft of Goldman's screenplay, which sticks closer to the original novel. Adam is more coarse and his relationship with his grandfather is even more contentious. At least one scene is moved up to an earlier place in the final theatrical cut. There's also some scenes Robinson added later. Goldman devotes more space to secondary characters who end up being pretty important. Overall, The Chamber as a motion picture definitely could have been better but it's a decent piece of entertainment. The film deserves a brand-new transfer but the DTS 5.1 track is outstanding and sounds great on this disc. RECOMMENDED to fans of Hackman, O'Donnell, and Dunaway.