Some of the best directors in film history have worked on John Grisham adaptations. Grisham, a novelist who specializes in legal thrillers and whose work could be found in airports everywhere throughout the ‘90s, isn’t society’s typical idea of a great writer. In fact, he tapped into the zeitgeist almost by mistake with the realization that a lawyer could easily replace a private detective as a reliable neo-noir protagonist. Perhaps this is why Sydney Pollack, Francis Ford Coppola and Alan J. Pakula all tried their hand at adapting Grisham novels for the screen.
The Gingerbread Man is also an adaptation of Grisham’s work, but it is different insofar that the source material is an unpublished manuscript, not a bestseller. This gave director Robert Altman and his screenwriter—the pseudonymous Al Hayes who is believed to be Altman himself—more latitude with the material. While the movie can be lurid or cheesy at times, you can still sense Altman’s touch lingering in the margins.
Like many of Grisham’s works, The Gingerbread Man centers around a lawyer in the South who finds himself in a tangled web of conspiracy and deception. Our hero is Rick Magruder (Kenneth Branagh), a hotshot defense attorney in Savannah who is celebrating a major victory. Rick is the smooth-talking type, a slick operator whose borderline sleazy behavior is tolerated by everyone except his ex-wife (Famke Janssen). After a celebration at his firm’s office, a series of improbable events unfold, and like many noir heroes before him, Rick is too horny to see through them. He meets Mallory (Embeth Davidtz), an attractive young waitress, at the party and offers to give her a ride home. She agrees, invites him inside and eventually gives him a sob story while stripping naked. While all this might seem ridiculous, Branagh and Altman don’t treat it too seriously, choosing instead to use the nudity as a kind of misdirection.
The real plot begins the following morning when Mallory asks Rick to help her with a legal matter involving her father Dixon (Robert Duvall), an eccentric old coot and possible cult leader, who needs psychiatric intervention. Mallory wants to put a stop to her father’s bad behavior, and with Rick’s help, the trial goes in Mallory’s favor. However, once it’s over, all hell breaks loose. Dixon’s disciples spring him from prison, and Rick’s entire world shuts down to the point where his children are nearly kidnapped. Even with the help of a private investigator named Clyde (a scene-stealing Robert Downey Jr.), it takes way too long for Rick to realize that maybe, just maybe, Mallory has nefarious designs in mind.
Twists and turns are ancillary to the script, focusing on an exploration of behavior and eccentricity. The Savannah setting wastes no time wandering through a town teeming with low lives, and shadowy powerful men. Since Rick finds himself in a position that threatens to undo his personal and professional life, there are many scenes where an ordinary filmmaker might hurry with the story. Yet, in Altman’s hands, The Gingerbread Man does not share the solipsism of its protagonist. There is a scene late in the film where Rick calls Clyde, demanding he spring into action, but Clyde is already drunk and would prefer to hang with the two young women he met at the bar. It’s a funny scene, and Altman underscores it by returning to the young women at the bar after Clyde sobers up. So many thrillers have blinders on them, determined to push forward, whereas this one is more of a panorama.
Another crucial detail to the plot is an encroaching hurricane. This ominous natural disaster adds atmosphere to all the action. At first, the grey palette is a drab, overcast distraction, and the oak-paneled interiors of Rick’s office are hardly an improvement. But once the storm hits, with rain and wind coming from all angles, it adds drama to a clunky climax that relies too much on violence (Altman is great at many things, but he is no one’s idea of a great fight choreographer). It is not until the final scenes, shot in warm sunlight, that we sense how much work the storm does for the building and easing of tension.
Altman’s The Gingerbread Man is not an essential film, yet it is an enjoyable one. However, most Altman fans will not remember how he slummed it with Grisham. Unfortunately, it is also impossible to find on any streaming service, so its ultimate fate might be to wallow in obscurity. Perhaps this is a blessing.
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