Many movies take a look at racism and such hate organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and their roots in the Deep South. The Chamber a movie based on the novel by John Grisham is just another in a long string of Hollywood movies on the subject. The movies main idea is that racism not only destroys the ones it’s targeted against but also the racists themselves and that’s it’s a never ending circle of hate and destruction to all those involved. While the idea is sound we are forced to wade though numerous and overly used clichés that just begin to make you cringe after awhile as they just lose their effectiveness not only from the movies overuse but also from Hollywood’s overuse of these tired clichés. The Chamber tells the story of a young Chicago lawyer named Adam Hall, played by Chris O'Donnell, who wants to go down to the Deep South to handle his final appeal of a murderer on Death Row. The killer, a Ku Klux Klan member named Sam Cayhall, played by Gene Hackman, who has been convicted of setting off a bomb in the offices of a Jewish civil rights attorney. The attorney's two young sons were killed; who was maimed and later committed suicide. What the movie reveals fairly quickly is that Adam Hall is Cayhall's grandson. Adam's father also committed suicide in front of Adam at the tender age of ten because of the atrocities he had seen his father commit and the death of a friend that he blamed on himself.

The murders took place in the 1960s and now after years of appeals that have been dragged through the courts, the time of execution is finally near. Adam goes south and discovers old family secrets from his aunt, played by Faye Dunaway, who watched years ago as Cayhall shot a neighboring black man to death who both Adam’s father and his aunt have blamed themselves for years. Cayhall quickly discovers who his new attorney really is, and reacts with a litany of colorful hate language. This where the movie digress’ the hate language and the vulgarities may be used to try and shock people but this a road that Hollywood has gone down way to many times before. The language is not effective and instead alienates its audience as you our forced to listen to one tirade after another of this useless language that does not advance the plot nor help in anyway.

The real subject of ``The Chamber'' of how the violence not only effects the attackers but the victims as well is seen by the family left behind by the old Sam Cayhall: of his son, a suicide; his grandson, who dreams of a Death Row miracle; his daughter (Dunaway), who has married a local banker and says she's ``done pretty well for poor white trash. But when the world finds out I'm Hitler's daughter . . .'' and all the devastation Cayhall has left in his family as the well of the ones he destroyed in hate crimes. Cayhall is slightly redeemed in the end but after a movie of listening to one tirade after another the audience finds it hard to empathize the character and almost wishes fro him to get the chamber. O'Donnell who really is too young to bring much to the part leaves you questioning many of his motives as if he hates racism so much why is he willing to fight so hard for a grandfather he has never met or hadn’t even heard of until his fathers funereal. The movie leaves you lacking and wanting for more as it fails to make you feel pity for his characters and has you questioning at times the motives of the film altogether.
2.5 stars out of 5