‹ All movies

The Rewatchables ·

The Firm

year 1993decade 90sdirector Sydney Pollackgenre Thrillergenre Drama
host Bill Simmonshost Sean Fennesseyhost Chris Ryan
All 16 categories

Most Rewatchable Scene · 19:27

The chase: Mitch summoned to the partners after taking Avery's files, Tarrance's 'get out of there' call, and the escape through Memphis

The chase is the one pick: Mitch takes files from Avery's office, is stopped for a word, Brimley comes down, and the Ed Harris 'get out of there' call starts a fifteen-minute stretch the host watches every time, with Cruise running, jumping onto a truck that happens to carry pillows, riding the tram and hanging on while the two hitmen chase him; it carries the movie and is Sidney Pollack doing Three Days of the Condor twenty years later.

The scene where Mitch guesses his salary is a minor but good dramatic scene, one of the few that shows his intellect at work, and the hosts play the clip; the final maneuver that turns the ending into a court proceeding with Lambert as judge and Lamar as defense lawyer is also loved.

The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie · 1:15:38

"It's amazing how much you miss the sky"

Nominated lines: Ray's 'it's amazing how much you miss the sky', DeVasher's 'what do you think I am, the fucking night watchman', Mitch's line about Harvard and jail both ending up surrounded by crooks, and every Ed Harris line, including the 'chicken shit little Harvard cocksucker' speech played as a clip; one host's favorite is 'we'll take those steak sandwiches to go', and Harris is called a candidate for the overacting award too.

The film

The Firm (1993)

Directed by Sydney Pollack · Thriller / Drama

154 minutes

IMDbLetterboxdJustWatch
Cast

Selected cast credits · Film reference

Tom Cruise Mitch McDeere , a promising recent Harvard Law graduate
Jeanne Tripplehorn Abby McDeere, Mitch's wife
Gene Hackman Avery Tolar, Mitch's mentor at the Firm
Holly Hunter Tammy Hemphill, Eddie's secretary and lover who aids Mitch in copying and stealing the files in Memphis and the Cayman Islands
Ed Harris FBI Agent Wayne Tarrance, the agent in charge of the investigation into the Firm; Mitch's primary contact with the FBI
Hal Holbrook Oliver Lambert, senior partner at the Firm
Jerry Hardin Royce McKnight, managing partner at the Firm
David Strathairn Ray McDeere, Mitch's brother who was in jail for a manslaughter conviction
Terry Kinney Lamar Quinn, Mitch's friend who works at the Firm
Wilford Brimley Bill DeVasher, officially the head of security at the Firm—unofficially the Firm's main hitman
Sullivan Walker Thomas Abanks, the owner of a scuba diving business
Gary Busey Eddie Lomax, a private investigator and former cell-mate of Ray McDeere
Barbara Garrick Kay Quinn, Lamar Quinn's wife who befriends both Abby and Mitch
Steven Hill FBI Director F. Denton Voyles
Margo Martindale Nina Huff, Mitch's secretary
Paul Sorvino Tony Morolto
Joe Viterelli Joey Morolto
Jerry Weintraub Sonny Capps
Tobin Bell The Nordic Man, Morolto Hitman
Dean Norris The Squat Man, Morolto Hitman
Karina Lombard the prostitute on the beach who seduces Mitch
John Beal Nathan Locke
Paul Calderon FBI Agent Thomas Richie

Everything from the episode

In the order the hosts got to it. Open a row for the discussion.

16:36

Roger Ebert's review
In the discussion (1)
Approx. transcript time · 00:16:36Read transcript
  • Ebert gave the film three stars out of four, which sounds about right to the hosts; he called it virtually an anthology of good small character performances.
Share this discussion More Roger Ebert's review answers
19:27

Most Rewatchable Scene

The chase: Mitch summoned to the partners after taking Avery's files, Tarrance's 'get out of there' call, and the esc...

The chase: Mitch summoned to the partners after taking Avery's files, Tarrance's 'get out of there' call, and the escape through Memphis

In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 00:19:27Read transcript
  • The chase is the one pick: Mitch takes files from Avery's office, is stopped for a word, Brimley comes down, and the Ed Harris 'get out of there' call starts a fifteen-minute stretch the host watches every time, with Cruise running, jumping onto a truck that happens to carry pillows, riding the tram and hanging on while the two hitmen chase him; it carries the movie and is Sidney Pollack doing Three Days of the Condor twenty years later.
  • The scene where Mitch guesses his salary is a minor but good dramatic scene, one of the few that shows his intellect at work, and the hosts play the clip; the final maneuver that turns the ending into a court proceeding with Lambert as judge and Lamar as defense lawyer is also loved.
  • The Grand Cayman meeting where Mitch and Avery talk Sonny Capps into a tax loophole shows why Mitch is a great lawyer, though Cruise's profane 'fucked with a dick big enough for an elephant to feel it' line sounds like a robot wrote it; Jerry Weintraub playing a dirtbag years before Ocean's Eleven is enjoyed.
  • The chase, Cruise on the run, is called one of the best fifteen-minute sequences of the nineties; the wined-and-dined montage of Mitch learning the firm while Abby grows suspicious through Lamar's wife is also entertaining, the first hour is strong, the middle sags and the ending picks up, including the demolished house and Abby's return.
  • The boat scene between Strathairn and Holly Hunter, with the crooked-smile exchange, is a couple the host would have taken ten more minutes of instead of the beach scene.
Share this discussion More Most Rewatchable Scene answers
29:02

What’s Aged the Best?

Dave Grusin's piano score; the name Mitch McDeere; the Cayman Islands as a locale; nineties Cruise; the cast as a who...

Dave Grusin's piano score; the name Mitch McDeere; the Cayman Islands as a locale; nineties Cruise; the cast as a whole; the Memphis setting; the foresight in casting future character actors

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 00:29:02Read transcript
  • The soundtrack, controversial at the time, has aged the best: Dave Grusin's piano is a character in itself, adding humor, melancholy, romance and suspense, recurring in themes such as the guitar on Beale Street and the drive by the river, and it puts Grusin on the Who Won the Movie list; it is called one of the best scores of the last twenty-five years and was Oscar-nominated, though polarizing when released.
  • Mitch McDeere is a great name; the Cayman Islands have always aged well as a mysterious locale; nineties Cruise is a peak era, and the hosts miss having an actor you buy season tickets for, floating Emma Stone, Miles Teller, Damon and Leo.
  • The totality of the cast and the Memphis setting, an emptied, fading southern metropolis, have aged well; on rewatch Mitch and Abby are themselves idiosyncratic, a self-made striver and a more moneyed wife, which reads as a Clinton-era, sell-out-or-not story that David Rabe and Robert Towne were obsessed with.
  • The character-actor foresight has aged well: Dean Norris and Tobin Bell as the two assassins before Breaking Bad and Saw, Terry Kinney before Oz and Billions, and Margo Martindale as the secretary, classic Pollack casting where the eighteenth most important person is a great actor.
Share this discussion More What’s Aged the Best? answers
37:36

What’s Aged the Worst?

The 155-minute runtime; the beach scene and Cruise's pirate shirt; the sweaty basketball scene; the backflips on Beal...

The 155-minute runtime; the beach scene and Cruise's pirate shirt; the sweaty basketball scene; the backflips on Beale Street; Cruise eating ribs; the instant steak sandwiches; Abby's Cayman plan; DeVasher as muscle; the late FBI plot maintenance

In the discussion (7)
Approx. transcript time · 00:37:36Read transcript
  • The 155-minute length has aged badly; the beach scene could be ten seconds, though one host argues it is needed to show the infidelity and the repair, and the film should be about two hours, with Pollack seemingly refusing to cut anything.
  • Cruise's pirate shirt in the Caymans and the sweaty basketball scene, where he never actually plays, have not aged well; his athletic ability is a favorite topic, with softball in A Few Good Men and cornerback in All the Right Moves the most believable, and Vision Quest imagined as his ideal sports film.
  • Cruise's backflips with a street tumbler on Beale Street, set up so he can be sad walking past the kid later, immediately date the film; nobody in real life does that, Abby's 'there he goes' makes no sense, and Kaya, asked whether she would date a man who did it, answers absolutely and then absolutely not.
  • Cruise eats a rib on the rooftop like a popsicle, as if he had never eaten ribs, prompting the joke that he learned human behavior through acting.
  • Tarrance and another agent order steak sandwiches at a late-night diner and get them within thirty-five seconds; Abby's plan to fly to Grand Cayman makes no sense, since she could not know the hotel or get a direct flight from Memphis.
  • Wilford Brimley as head of security and muscle has aged oddly; the last forty-five minutes are heavy on plot maintenance, such as the FBI holding the mob family's itinerary, Mitch getting the overbilling idea from the overbilled client, and Avery rolling over for Abby after she drugs him.
  • The film has a ton of flaws but is still great; the show does not require Citizen Kane.
Share this discussion More What’s Aged the Worst? answers
48:49

Casting What-Ifs

Jason Patric turned down Mitch; Meryl Streep was wanted for a gender-swapped Avery until Grisham objected; Robin Wrig...

Jason Patric turned down Mitch; Meryl Streep was wanted for a gender-swapped Avery until Grisham objected; Robin Wright turned down Abby; Halle Berry auditioned for the woman on the beach

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 00:48:49Read transcript
  • Jason Patric turned down Mitch two years before Speed 2; Cruise was probably Plan B and expensive, the biggest star in the world at the time.
  • Gene Hackman joined late because the producers wanted to gender-swap Avery and cast Meryl Streep until John Grisham objected; one host thinks it might be a better movie without the beach scene, but another says Hackman is why the film makes sense, and Streep never played that older, divorced, sexualized, secretly bad character.
  • Robin Wright turned down Abby, as she seemed to for every movie, and Halle Berry auditioned for the woman on the beach, which one host would have preferred.
Share this discussion More Casting What-Ifs answers
52:05

The Dion Waiters Award for Best Heat Check Performance

Wilford Brimley

Wilford Brimley

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 00:52:05Read transcript
  • Wilford Brimley qualifies and therefore wins; David Strathairn, Holly Hunter, Paul Sorvino playing a mob boss again after Goodfellas, the actor beside Sorvino and Gary Busey make up the rest of the top five.
  • Brimley is his own planet in the film: the hosts quote his 'oral and whatnot' speech, note that Hackman was five years older yet Brimley seemed born at fifty, recall him as the Quaker Oats man and the manager in The Natural, and perform his catalog monologue, which the Ringer's president Jeff Chow does best.
  • Brimley had never played a bad guy before, brings an unexpected edge, and the blockbuster hinges on him checking whether the fax machine has paper; it is traumatic to watch Cruise fall on him and kick him, and whether he died is left for unanswerable questions.
  • Brimley carried himself like a hated stepfather and makes the office scene before the chase feel like Mitch is about to be killed; the 'oral and whatnot' line is recited again and he is declared the winner.
Share this discussion More The Dion Waiters Award for Best Heat Check Performance answers
58:40

The Joey Pants “That Guy” Award

The unnamed actor beside Paul Sorvino's mob boss, with Jerry Hardin (Royce McKnight) as runner-up

The unnamed actor beside Paul Sorvino's mob boss, with Jerry Hardin (Royce McKnight) as runner-up

In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 00:58:40Read transcript
  • The award is explained as Joe Pantoliano, 'that guy' through the eighties before becoming Joey Pants; the question is whether the winner should be someone who was that guy then and became known, or someone never known, with Terry Kinney, David Strathairn and Paul Sorvino ruled out as people we know.
  • The personal choice is the man beside Paul Sorvino, with Hal Holbrook's consigliere Jerry Hardin, who plays Royce McKnight, as runner-up; Hardin was in everything for twenty years, from Big Trouble in Little China and Reds to Deep Throat on the X Files and Melrose Place.
Share this discussion More The Joey Pants “That Guy” Award answers
1:00:46

Half-Assed Internet Research

Hackman's name was left off the poster over Cruise's above-the-title deal; the ending differs from the book; Trippleh...

Hackman's name was left off the poster over Cruise's above-the-title deal; the ending differs from the book; Tripplehorn dated Ben Stiller for six years; Pollack voices the prison warden; a 2012 TV series continued the story; the Hyatt Regency Grand Cayman was destroyed by Hurricane Ivan; Hackman has not made a film since 2004

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 01:00:46Read transcript
  • Gene Hackman's name did not appear on the release poster because Cruise's Paramount deal allowed only his name above the title; Hackman asked to be removed entirely and appears only in the end credits.
  • The ending differs significantly from the book, where Mitch swindles ten million from the firm and there is a manhunt; Jeanne Tripplehorn dated Ben Stiller for six years, and the hosts think she was a nineties face who had a better career than remembered, including Big Love, with one calling her better than Holly Hunter here.
  • Sidney Pollack voices the prison warden on the phone to Ed Harris's agent; a 2012 TV series picked up Mitch ten years later; the Cayman hotel was the Hyatt Regency Grand Cayman, destroyed by Hurricane Ivan in 2004 and later demolished.
  • Hackman's last film was Welcome to Mooseport in 2004; Grantland accidentally made people think he had died through a headline Sean Fennessey wrote; Tarantino wanted him for the Robert Forster role in Jackie Brown; a 2018 bicycling article shows him at 88 riding an electric bike in New Mexico.
Share this discussion More Half-Assed Internet Research answers
1:03:35

The Stephen A. Smith Hottest Take Award

Jeanne Tripplehorn is better than Holly Hunter in this movie

Jeanne Tripplehorn is better than Holly Hunter in this movie

In the discussion (1)
Approx. transcript time · 01:03:35Read transcript
  • The take is that Tripplehorn was better than Holly Hunter in this film; the others agree she is very good in a part that is not easy and gives a real sense of who Abby is.
Share this discussion More The Stephen A. Smith Hottest Take Award answers
1:07:32

Apex Mountain

Jeanne Tripplehorn; Holly Hunter; John Grisham

Jeanne Tripplehorn; Holly Hunter; John Grisham

In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 01:07:32Read transcript
  • Tom Cruise is not at Apex Mountain here.
  • Wilford Brimley is argued for, but the others put his peak in the Cocoon and The Natural era, since this is against-type Brimley rather than the quintessence.
  • Jeanne Tripplehorn is a yes: Basic Instinct, then Tom Cruise's wife in a huge hit, then Waterworld; Big Love is considered but rejected.
  • Holly Hunter is a yes for most, with this and The Piano out the same year, though one host prefers Broadcast News, which prompts a tangent on that film and William Hurt.
  • John Grisham is a yes: three of the top six bestseller spots, a Tom Cruise movie and seven more coming, although he has published a book every year since 1991; The Pelican Brief is called rough.
Share this discussion More Apex Mountain answers
1:11:04

Is This Movie Better With…?

Danny Trejo or Steve Buscemi

Danny Trejo or Steve Buscemi

In the discussion (1)
Approx. transcript time · 01:11:04Read transcript
Share this discussion More Is This Movie Better With…? answers
1:11:18

The Ruffalo / Hanna / Rubinek / Partridge Overacting Award

Gary Busey

Gary Busey

In the discussion (1)
Approx. transcript time · 01:11:18Read transcript
  • Busey, doing the 'Elvis Aaron Hemphill' speech (as transcribed), is the easy pick: a heat-check era after Point Break when he tried to reinvent himself as a crazy character actor, and he is one of the worst parts of the film.
Share this discussion More The Ruffalo / Hanna / Rubinek / Partridge Overacting Award answers
1:12:05

Picking Nits

Mitch trusts Tammy instantly; Avery's flip; the firm never tails Mitch; the premise collapses under scrutiny; Mitch w...

Mitch trusts Tammy instantly; Avery's flip; the firm never tails Mitch; the premise collapses under scrutiny; Mitch would be shot walking into the mob boss's suite

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 01:12:05Read transcript
  • Mitch trusts Holly Hunter's character within seconds on the word of a maniac felon, and Abby then does too; Avery flipping and telling Abby everything is explained as depression in a middle-aged spiral; the firm should have been tailing Mitch from the forty-minute mark, though he may be assuming surveillance in the diner.
  • The premise does not hold: Harvard's crackerjack lawyer never asks who the clients are or how the firm makes money, representing the mafia is not illegal, no firm would launder money this way, and attorney-client privilege means the firm would never need to kill departing lawyers; the reluctant host says this is why he resisted the episode, yet the Xeroxing-and-overbilling plot still makes it rewatchable.
  • Walking into Sorvino's hotel suite, Mitch would simply be shot rather than heard out.
  • Earlier, while still on what aged worst, the hosts admit they are already picking nits: the FBI having the mob family's itinerary, Mitch getting the overbilling idea from the client being overbilled, and Avery rolling over for Abby.
Share this discussion More Picking Nits answers
1:15:38

The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie

"It's amazing how much you miss the sky"; "What do you think I am, the fucking night watchman?"; "Wouldn't it be funn...

"It's amazing how much you miss the sky"; "What do you think I am, the fucking night watchman?"; "Wouldn't it be funny if I went to Harvard and you went to jail and we both ended up surrounded by crooks?"; "We'll take those steak sandwiches to go"

In the discussion (1)
Approx. transcript time · 01:15:38Read transcript
  • Nominated lines: Ray's 'it's amazing how much you miss the sky', DeVasher's 'what do you think I am, the fucking night watchman', Mitch's line about Harvard and jail both ending up surrounded by crooks, and every Ed Harris line, including the 'chicken shit little Harvard cocksucker' speech played as a clip; one host's favorite is 'we'll take those steak sandwiches to go', and Harris is called a candidate for the overacting award too.
Share this discussion More The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie answers
1:16:38

Probably Unanswerable Questions

Did Avery die or kill himself? Did Mitch kick DeVasher to death? What happens to Lamar? What is the best Grisham movie?

Did Avery die or kill himself? Did Mitch kick DeVasher to death? What happens to Lamar? What is the best Grisham movie?

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 01:16:38Read transcript
  • Why Lamar is introduced as a big character, with the Heineken-and-sprinklers image, then vanishes; the answer offered is that the film is already too long, and he fits Cruise's pattern of a loser buddy sidekick.
  • The best Grisham movie is called unanswerable: a sentimental favorite is The Client, another prefers A Time to Kill for Samuel L. Jackson, McConaughey's closing and evil Kiefer Sutherland; Ed Harris's bald look and the 'they don't own me' line lifted from Thief come up along the way.
  • Earlier, whether the firm killed Avery or he killed himself was parked as an unanswerable question.
  • Whether Mitch kicked DeVasher to death was debated during the Brimley section: he was probably groaning, with a concussion and broken ribs rather than dead.
Share this discussion More Probably Unanswerable Questions answers
1:21:53

Who Won the Movie?

Dave Grusin

Dave Grusin

In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 01:21:53Read transcript
  • Candidates are Dave Grusin, Cruise, Brimley, Hackman, Grisham and Pollack, for whom this was the first good film in a long time, since Out of Africa, with Havana a dud; the score is declared the winner as the best part of the film and what makes it stand out twenty-five years later, and the others agree.
  • A Brimley aside asks how the briefcase survives being swung thirty times and jokes that the gymnastics exist so Mitch can hang from the ceiling.
Podcast choices
Speaker not identified
Dave Grusin
Speaker not identified
Dave Grusin
Share this discussion More Who Won the Movie? answers

More from the conversation

The host who resisted the film for months says cable kept showing it, his wife complained about his rewatching, and that tipped it into being a rewatchable.
Approx. transcript time · 00:01:13Read transcript
The film is called a perfect rewatchable precisely because it is not a perfect movie: a good plot with flaws, peak Tom Cruise, and like Heat it rewards both close and casual viewing because a different element stands out every time.
Approx. transcript time · 00:01:43Read transcript
After a Grissom/Grisham pronunciation stumble, the hosts recall everyone reading Grisham around 1991, being slightly disappointed in the theater after the book, and that the film felt like a big prestige adaptation (Pollack, Rabe, Towne, two Oscar nominations) yet is only a Hollywood thriller about a lawyer who never goes to court; a critic called it the first Xerox thriller.
Approx. transcript time · 00:03:09Read transcript
Being too close to the book hurt it on release, as with Presumed Innocent, though one host saw Presumed Innocent cold and loved the ending; the Grisham books were car-trip reading for a child of divorce, and The Firm is called the best of them.
Approx. transcript time · 00:05:50Read transcript
Hollywood no longer makes adult, complicated, violent movies like this for a take-it-or-leave-it audience; the era still used seventies talent on a bigger scale, Disclosure is a comparison, and the Sorvino and Ed Harris exposition barely matters.
Approx. transcript time · 00:08:33Read transcript
Production facts recited: the book came out in 1991, the film in June 1993 during a week when Grisham and Michael Crichton split the top six paperback spots; it made $158 million domestic and $111 million international as the top-grossing R-rated film of 1993 with two Oscar nominations, in the year of Jurassic Park, Sleepless in Seattle and Schindler's List.
Approx. transcript time · 00:10:28Read transcript
Holly Hunter was Oscar-nominated for under six minutes of screen time across twenty scenes; the hosts debate whether it was Oscar-worthy, review the 1993 supporting actress field won by Anna Paquin, note Hunter and Emma Thompson were nominated in both actress categories that year, and run through the supporting actor and best actor fields.
Approx. transcript time · 00:11:26Read transcript
The cast includes two Oscar winners, Hackman and Hunter, and nominees Holbrook, Harris, Cruise, Busey and Strathairn; Strathairn, against type as Ray, is a favorite 'that guy' and the best thing in Eight Men Out.
Approx. transcript time · 00:14:52Read transcript
Cruise's run from A Few Good Men through Jerry Maguire is admired, Eyes Wide Shut is promised for 2019, and this is called the last time he played the cocky striver derailed and forced to solve things; the film also starts the pattern of characters telling Cruise how incredible he is, and he is at his best as the underdog rather than the Top Gun hotshot.
Approx. transcript time · 00:16:36Read transcript
Cruise's Chinese-food serving and couch-mauling of Abby are mocked as the behavior of a man who has never eaten Chinese food, a thread the hosts tie to Eyes Wide Shut.
Approx. transcript time · 00:22:55Read transcript
Hackman's Avery is the one time he convincingly pulls off the horny older man: lovesick and credible yet creepy, hitting on Abby at a funeral and holding her hand too long, a subtly drawn boundary violation that would read differently now.
Approx. transcript time · 00:24:51Read transcript
A tangent on Matt Damon and Downsizing: one host calls defending Downsizing his hottest take and plans to write it up in ten years, since Alexander Payne is one of seven directing geniuses.
Approx. transcript time · 00:32:16Read transcript
On whether Gene Hackman could still be seen, the hosts mention his retirement after Welcome to Mooseport and that someone tried to coax him back without success.
Approx. transcript time · 01:05:11Read transcript
Asked how they would edit the film, the hosts would cut twenty minutes, including the Lamar scenes, the beach scene and some FBI business such as the reflecting-pool meeting with Voyles; one argues the bagginess is what makes it good and that two great screenwriters and a playwright still could not make the trashy novel logical.
Approx. transcript time · 01:20:27Read transcript
The reluctant host is glad they did it, calling it rewatchable if not fully worthy; doing it buys Sean and Chris a Collateral episode. The last two episodes of 2018 will be Con Air and Tombstone, and the show plans to go weekly in 2019.
Approx. transcript time · 01:23:33Read transcript