Tom Cruise as a hotshot lawyer, fresh out of school, who takes a tantalizing job offer in Memphis and discovers it's more than he bargained for. Soon he's on the run from both the law and his former bosses, trying to serve justice without sacrificing his young career along the way. It's serviceable, but has some issues.

Most of the plot revolves around various cast members making poor decisions under pressure, which is odd considering they share a profession that demands cool heads. The big-spending highs never seem all that high, perhaps a symptom of the movie's age (the cushy home Cruise is provided by his new employers is furnished to look like your Grandma's crib), and the chief threats can be hard to take seriously because they always seem so bumbling and aloof. The firm's muscle, led by a rotund, elderly Wilford Brimley (with a quick appearance from Breaking Bad's Dean Norris), is a comedy of errors and the pursuing FBI squad, likewise, can't get out of its own way.

It has twists and turns, standard for a Grisham adaptation, but they aren't always set up properly and don't make a ton of sense. Usually you'd expect some great oration from this kind of place setting, but the monologues are kept short and underwhelming in favor of a series of frantic chase scenes and tense near-misses. A touch on the bland side, it's not as bad as my complaints might let on but also not as good as some of the author's better-known works.