Movie Review: My Best Friend’s Wife

Movie: My best friend’s wife

Starring: John Stamos, Daniel London, Meredith Salenger and Tara Westwood.

Director: Doug Finelli

Reviewer: Manuel Odeny

My best friend’s wife tries to look at unfaithfulness in the life of couples after a long stay and the first spark dies.

Steve Meyers (John Stamos) convinces his wife Claire (Tara Westwood) of a swap with his childhood buddy Eric Meyer (Daniel London) to avoid infidelity in their relationship.

Meyers argues that after birth and free sexual experiences couples are tied up together in steady relationships. Boring albeit. The boredom may be eased by controlled infidelity!

On the other hand Eric Meyer finds it an uphill task to convince his sweetheart Ami (Meredith Salenger) of the swap plan.

When at last the swap happens the effect is felt in tension in their relationship and family.

Tension builds when Ami and Steve sleep together while Eric and Claire opt to be faithful.

The director Doug Finelli skillfully makes the story line to grip and the characters play their parts superbly to hold the viewer to the end.

The only thumbs down is that in African culture where sex in held in privately and least casual the movie only makes for an emotional fantasy.

Book Review: The Chamber by John Grisham

Death row convict, convicted punishment against truth

TITLE: The Chamber
AUTHOR: John Grisham
PUBLISHER: Dell Publishing, ‘94
PAGES: 676
GENRE: Fiction
REVIEWER: Manuel Odeny.

The clock is ticking away for a brutal killer. The gas chamber of a maximum security unit in Mississippi state prison is beckoning with eager executioners. A former remorseless Klansman Sam Cayhall is facing death for bombing of Jewish twins. Standing between the unrepentant racist and punishment lies a truth and many hidden dark secrets.

The Cayhall family has been in the Ku Klux Klan for generations. A die hard fundamentalist Sam Cayhall drives his family to breakdown.

With a family shrouded by shame, lies and dark secrets only the truth stands between the death row convict and a pardon on the gas chamber. The truth has been the missing cog in the trial case stretching for over two decades in three different trials.

The truth has caused the death of a co-defendant and a lawyer. The truth may set .Sam Cayhall free or kill his grandson lawyer Adam Hall representing him.

26 years old Adam Hall leaves an established law firm with a brilliant career future for a risk to try his maiden case with impossible stakes to save his death row convict grandfather.

Tension mounts to the D-day. The protesters march, appeals are broadcasted and back room court maneuvers are in full throttle.

John Grisham

The legal thriller John Grisham masterfully intertwines with authority the Kluckers heyday in southern states to more liberalized America today with effects on citizens.

With a literary knack the lives of the Cayhall family through the changes is fabricated to a climax with reader left to think about civil right movement in America, the death penalty and the changing face of America.

Book Review: The Rainmaker by John Grisham

Raining Millions, bring out your Umbrella.

TITLE: The Rainmaker
AUTHOR: John Grisham
PUBLISHER: Arrow Books,1995
PAGES: 568
GENRE: Fiction
REVIEWER: Manuel Odeny

after reading the book i agreed with the Daily Mail review: " He keeps us turning the pages untill after bedtime.." I concur less, I read the book for only a night.

Stuck in a profession he dislikes, law, one unemployed young lawyer in overcrowded profession in Memphis dodges mounting debts and humiliation from his colleagues. He broadcast his resume and knocks on law firms trying to look for employment.
After prostituting his academic qualification for loose end jobs he finds himself on the street with only one case.

One case which burdens him against a giant insurance company, Great Benefit, which killed a young man by refusing a claim to bone marrow transplant to treat cancer. Great Benefit refuses to pay in hope that the client could not get a lawyer. a shot
gone wrong.

It is only this case that could worth million of dollars and make the young newly qualified lawyer the rainmaker. scared, inexperienced and totally outgunned by the hottest trial lawyer money can buy Rudy Baylor, the young lawyer, embarks on the
battle to show the world the truth.

John Grisham

The book is gripping and holds the reader as s/he turns the pages. The king of legal thriller- Grisham- don't disappoint
and proves again that he is the best and didn't quit the robe for the pen without a good reason.

It is no wonder that a fellow author Ken Follett(Third Twin) reviewing for Evening Standard calls John Grisham " The best thriller writer alive:" making him have over 235 million books in print world wide.