A Time to Kill is a 1996 legal thriller directed by Joel Schumacher and based on the novel of the same name by John Grisham. The film follows the story of Carl Lee Hailey (played by Samuel L. Jackson), a black man living in a Mississippi town who murders two white men who had raped his young daughter.
Hailey hires a young, inexperienced lawyer named Jake Brigance (played by Matthew McConaughey) to defend him in court. Brigance acknowledges the difficulty of defending a black man in a racially charged southern community, but he takes on the case anyway.
As the trial progresses, tensions in the town escalate as members of the Ku Klux Klan agitate against Brigance and Hailey. Brigance receives threats against his family and property, but he refuses to back down.
With the help of his legal team, including his assistant Ellen Roark (played by Sandra Bullock), Brigance fights tirelessly to prove Hailey's innocence. The trial concludes with a dramatic closing argument delivered by Brigance, in which he asks the all-white jury to put themselves in Hailey's shoes and imagine the horror of watching one's own child being raped.
In the end, Hailey is found not guilty by reason of temporary insanity, and the community must come to terms with the deep racial divisions that still exist in their town. The film ends with Brigance and Hailey walking free, but with the realization that justice has come at a great cost.