It's ironic that the opening of this film takes place at the time when Faye Dunaway and Gene Hackman were making their star creating legacy in "Bonnie and Clyde". They are reunited 30 years later for this adaption of the John Grisham novel where Hackman is on death row for an act of terrorism (blowing up the lawfirm of a Jewish man),and three decades later is about to be gassed. Dunaway is his estranged daughter, and Chris McDonnell is his grandson, trying to get Hackman off of death row. This of course upsets Dunaway who had to deal with the scandal, the suicide of her brother, McDonnell's father, and desperately wants to keep that shame of her life hidden. Who can blame her? Duniway is now a Southern accented Auntie Mame type who drinks too much, has a husband she barely sees and is consumed with hatred for her father oh, not so much for what he did, but by how it impacted her life.

McDonnell has 28 days before the scheduled execution to get the sentence changed, and this gives him the opportunity to get to know his grandfather a bit, setting the record straight. "I was always embarrassed to be represented by such blatant bigots" the bigot (Hackman) says about having initially been represented by Jewish attorneys, and so begins the desire to watch his character fry. McDonnell doesn't even reveal at first that sees his grandson, but Hackman quickly figured it out. He questions how many women, blacks and Jews there are partners at the law firm McDonnell works for, and continues to about racist lingo every time they meet. It's a difficult role for Hackman to tackle, but he makes it commanding simply because he's Gene Hackman, not because you care about what happens to this character.

This is a a difficult subject matter to put on screen to entertain you, but as long as happen is on screen, it's riveting. While Faye Dunaway got nominations for worst supporting actress for her performance here, I don't think she's all that bad. I just think she wasn't very consistent in certain elements of it, and perhaps an actress a less of a name value would have been a better choice. In the supporting cast are such respected actors like Harve Presnell, Robert Prosky and Nicholas Pryor. Lela Rochon get your attention immediately as an assistant to the governor, while Millie Perkins, Anne Frank in the classic 1959 movie, is appropriately cast as the widow of the man injured in the bombing which resulted in the death of her twin sons.

This truly could have been a great movie, but certain elements of the story takes this in twists that seem to delay the inevitable and attempts to add a bit of sympathy for Hackman's character. Discussions over how Hackman would end up being executed (gas chamber or lethal injection) gives indication that Hackman would rather be gassed because the pain would give him justified punishment rather than the less painful lethal injection. I saw this years ago when it first came out on video and watching it again, noticed that it has a good structure, intense moments, but I don't feel the need to sit through the execution scene again. Hackman and Dunaway's one scene is probably the only genuinely bad moment, rather awkward and unconvincing. An unfortunate missed opportunity that really needed a stronger and more straightforward script without pushing an agenda.

If the title, "The Chamber", is meant to be a pun, it's a pretty good one. There's the judge's "chamber" where decisions are made, and, at the other end, the gas "chamber" where those plans are executed along with the inmate to whom those judgments were passed down.

In some ways, the title is the niftiest part of the movie. For John Gresham, whose intentions are always benign, it's a pretty weak story. (It shouldn't be, with William Goldman doing the adaptation.) It's Gresham's most pedantic. Condemned are both racist violence and the death penalty, the former more so than the latter.

That's the bothersome part of the plot. Okay, Gene Hackman does his best with the role of the lifetime KKK bomber who takes the rap for the real killer of the two Jewish children. But he's miscast. Hackman is not an unreflective, defiant, redneck racist and murderer. JAMES WOODS is that character. Hackman is absolutely first-rate (without being a bravura actor) when he gets the right role, whether it's villainous or heroic, but he's never been good with accents and, man, does this role call for one.

At that, he gives the strongest performance in the film, with support from a couple of seasoned players like Harve Presnell. Gresham's relatively innocent young idealist, Chris O'Donnell, does not convince. He looks the part alright but his voice and gestures suggest a weakness that the character shouldn't have. And he's the main man. Some of the supporting players, like Bo Jackson as Sergeant Packer, can't seem to act at all.

The climax involves one of those detailed execution scenes I've come to loathe. I don't understand why they're there. In a short cinematic exercise in the early 1940s, Orson Welles used the first-person camera to guide the viewer into a gas chamber. Then, in the mid-50s, there was a detailed execution of Susan Hayward in "I Want to Live." Then there was a hiatus for another twenty years or so before these tasteless scenes came back with a vengeance. Here we get to see Gene Hackman gassed to death, the foamy spittle dripping from his mouth as he expires. But what does this tell us? That execution is horrifying and painful? What else is new? So what do these scenes tell us that we don't already know? I understand some TV channels are negotiating with Texas to film executions for broadcast. (How long before the opportunity to pull the switch is auctioned on eBay?) What kind of audience do the writers and directors think they're addressing?

The musical score is by Carter Burwell and it's fairly conventional, full of deep and ominous chords. He's a talented composer who has done quirkier work in better films like "Fargo" and "The Spanish Prisoner." Judging from the movies that are based on his novels, John Gresham is in the not-uncommon position of being at odds with the values of the society he grew up in. A lot of other marginalized writers have also been prompted to explain the sins of their culture's past to the rest of us, beginning maybe with Nathaniel Hawthorne and running through the Southern giants of American literature and playwriting -- Tennessee Williams, Faulkner, and the rest. Gresham fits the mold and his work is interesting, but this is a failed effort. The legal aspects are confusing, the characters a bit muddled, and the story itself either too simple or too complex, depending on how you look at it.

Sam Cayhall (Gene Hackman) is set to be executed for a bombing thirty years ago in Mississippi that killed two Jewish boys. His grandson Adam (Chris O'Donnell) has been avoiding the hateful legacy of his Klan grandfather. The young lawyer takes on the case. His investigation reveals that others were involved and he struggles to stop the execution.

Gene Hackman is a great racist but his character is irredeemable. Chris O'Donnell has his boyish looks but I don't sense the substance. Faye Dunaway is simply horrible in this one. The story is flat. The legal thriller is ultimately meaningless. Other than Hackman, this movie doesn't have much.