The Chamber is a 1996 American legal thriller film directed by James Foley. It is based on John Grisham's 1994 novel of the same name. The film stars Chris O'Donnell, Gene Hackman (who had previously appeared in another Grisham adaptation, The Firm), Faye Dunaway, Lela Rochon, Robert Prosky, Raymond J. Barry and David Marshall Grant.
The Chamber was released by Universal Pictures on October 11, 1996. The film received negative reviews from critics and was a box office bomb, grossing $22.5 million against a $40 million budget.
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Plot
In April 1967, the office of Marvin Kramer, a Jewish civil rights lawyer in Indianola, Mississippi, is bombed by the Ku Klux Klan, killing Kramer's young twin sons Josh and John and leading to the amputation of Kramer's legs and his later suicide. Klansman Sam Cayhall is convicted of murder and sentenced to die in the gas chamber at the Mississippi State Penitentiary.
Twenty-nine years later, Adam Hall, a young attorney in Chicago and Cayhall's grandson, goes to Jackson, Mississippi to take over the case in the last weeks before his scheduled execution. He reconnects with his aunt Lee Bowen, an alcoholic socialite who has managed to avoid public association with her infamous father, and who warns Adam about dredging up the past. On death row, Sam brags about his participation in the Klan bombing campaign of which the Kramer bombing was a part, though he denies that any of the bombings were intended to kill. He taunts Adam for his youth, legal inexperience, opposition to racism, and his father Eddie's suicide, but he agrees to allow Adam to represent him, though he forbids Adam from seeking clemency from Mississippi Governor David McAllister. As Adam begins to argue the case, he is approached by the Governor through an aide, Nora Stark, who suggests that he might consider clemency if Sam provides information about unidentified co-conspirators to the bombing.
