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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Chamber, The

EMAILPRINTUniversal Pictures

Chamber, The reviews
45
5.0 User Score:

Mixed or average reviews

Based on 18 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 2 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info

Genre(s): Drama  |  Suspense/Thriller

Written by: John Grisham (novel)
William Goldman
Chris Reese

Directed by: James Foley

Release Date:
Theatrical: October 11, 1996
DVD: May 26, 1998

Running Time: 113 minutes, Color

Origin: USA

Summary

RATING: R for violent images and some language

Starring Chris O'Donnell, Gene Hackman, Faye Dunaway, Robert Prosky, Raymond J. Barry, Bo Jackson, Lela Rochon, and David Marshall Grant

O'Donnell stars as idealistic young attorney Adam Hall who takes on the death row clemency case of his onetime Klansman grandfather, Sam Cayhall (Hackman). With just 28 days before the execution, Adam sets out to retrace the events leading to the crime for which Sam was convicted. As the impending death sentence looms closer, Adam works quickly to uncover the family's history for any hidden clues. In a white-knuckle series of twists and turns, Adam discovers deceptions and dark secrets that ultimately lead him to the startling truth. (Universal Pictures)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

70

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Delivers the entertaining goods without fuss or frills.

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70

Variety Emanuel Levy

An intelligently proficient movie that works more effectively as a family drama than a legal thriller.

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63

San Francisco Examiner Barbara Shulgasser

Hackman is, as ever, a master performer, an actor at the peak of his powers. However, he can't carry the whole movie.

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60

Washington Post Rita Kempley

Though it lacks the gloss, twists and star power of earlier Grisham movies, The Chamber does possess Gene Hackman's most cantankerous turn since the lowdown lawman he created in "Unforgiven."

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60

TV Guide Staff (Not credited)

The usual John Grisham legal hokum, tranformed by director James Foley into surprisingly grim and affecting stuff.

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50

USA Today Mike Clark

The Chamber merits some respect for daring to be gloomy, for facing the capital punishment issue head-on and for the quality of Gene Hackman's performance. [11 October 1996, p.1D]

50

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Hackman gives a powerful performance as the killer, and the storytelling is often gripping. But the film contains much extremely offensive language and gratuitous depictions of violence, some of it aimed at children, not needed to get the plot across.

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50

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The Chamber goes so far toward humanizing bigotry it ends up sentimentalizing it.

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50

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

Timing does no favors for The Chamber, the John Grisham death row drama that arrives on the heels of a better death row film (''Dead Man Walking'') and a better Grisham adaptation (''A Time to Kill''). But this film's also-ran aspects are partly offset by Gene Hackman's superlative performance.

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50

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Even more sad is an embarrassingly shrill performance by Faye Dunaway, and an ending which insults the ability of the audience to watch a movie without having a conclusion spoon-fed to them.

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50

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The films portray the Klan as criminal, racist and anonymous, but those have always been its selling points; it is not portrayed as boring and stupid.

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50

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Mechanical and artificial, and tells you what to think.

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40

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

The Chamber is like a balloon that all the air has leaked out of. Maybe it wasn't magnificent before, but in its current state it is sad indeed.

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40

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Material so bereft of plot and insight that all it can provide is actorly turns with no cogent means for tying them together.

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40

The New Yorker Bruce Diones

The film flails all over the place in an attempt to appear tense and authoritative--but the plot never takes hold.

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40

Empire Ian Nathan

No fun at all.

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40

Austin Chronicle Joey O'Bryan

An adequate, inoffensive thriller that, every so often, shows itself to be a little smarter than it needs to be… even if it isn't often enough to make this thriller anything more than average.

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25

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

The Chamber has nowhere to go and it goes there slowly, flirting in all directions.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 5.0 (out of 10) based on 2 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Capo Regime gave it a5:
Not as intense as the other Grisham based films. Thumbs up to Hackman, only to him.

donnie darko gave it a5:
This is exactly an everage movie, a five star movie. A kind of movies that i will never want to watch twice. But that is ok. I dont hate it i dont love it. just another normal ordinary movie.

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