Kane and Abel : Novel and TV mini-series

One more of my posts on an adaptation of my favorite novel. Jeffrey Archer is one of the best authors the world has ever seen. The stories he writes are something which are only exclusive to him. There is no one in the world to match his unique style. One of my favorite books by him is Kane and Abel.
The novel revolves around the life of two men, William Kane and Abel Rosnovski.

The two men have nothing in common except that they are born on the same day in the early 19th century and they both want to succeed. William is born in the United States while Abel is born as Wladek Koskiewicz in Poland under great poverty and hardships. William is inspired by his father, chairman of Kane and Cabot Bank and plans to be a great banker someday. Whereas Abel under poverty struggles to find a living and education.

The First World War changes Abel's life and after an invasion of Germans and Russians into Poland, Abel has no option but to flee. He goes to a numerous places before getting an opportunity to go in the United States. There he starts his struggle to survive taking up odd jobs before becoming a waiter. His journey from being a waiter to manager of a hotel and being an owner of large chain of hotels is depicted in a great and inspiring way.

While Abel makes his life in Poland and escapes to United States, William is no less. He is extraordinarily intelligent in mathematics and has deep rooted sense of right business tactics. He grows up enduring his father tragic death in The Titanic, studies hard to get into Harvard. Life is not easy for him too, his mother remarries another man, Henry Osborne(David Osborne in the TV series) who turns out to be a gold digger and just exploits his mother's wealth. His mother too dies shortly after period of tensions and mental frustrations. William after completing his education gets on the board of his father's great bank with his genius and plans one day to be the chairman just like his father was.

The stories of these two great men go parallel until one day when Abel, the manager of a big group of hotels has to deal with Kane, one of the directors of bank regarding the loans of Abel's employer, David Leroy. Kane appears as expected of him(in a professional way) which angers Abel. Also during this Leroy commits suicide which triggers Abel's anger towards Kane to a great extent. Abel wows to destroy Kane and thus a great rivalry starts. Each one leaves no stone unturned in destroying each other and fight for the next three decades of their lives.

The book and the TV miniseries (of 3 episodes) based on the book shows us this great story well. A story spanning for 6 decades(right from birth till the end of the men) is something everyone should see, enjoy and feel.

The Client

John Grisham is one of my favorite authors. He is truly the king of legal thrillers. Being a lawyer himself he knows his works inside out. I have read many of his novels and needless to say that I have watched all their movie adaptations. All of them have been  quite good and up to the mark. But I prefer The Client (book) to others. Many others who are aware of his works may not be of the same opinion, majority might say A Time To Kill or The Rainmaker to be the best. Some might say The Firm was better or even The Pelican Brief or other of his works. In this post I would like to talk about the movie The Client.

The Client was directed by Joel Schumacher. The screenplay for it was written was Akiva Goldsman and Robert Getchell.

The movie starts with Mark(Brad Renfro) and his brother finding a lawyer who is about to commit to suicide. As Mark tries to save him, the lawyer grabs Mark too and tries to kill Mark along with himself. Thinking of these as his last moments, the lawyer tells Mark the reasons because of which he is committing suicide. The words Mark hears are something which troubles Mark and he knows anyone who would know this things will not be able to live.

Mark somehow manages to save himself and runs along with his brother who was hiding and watching all the events. His brother, Rick gets traumatized due this and has a shock. Thus Rick is hospitalized. Unable to keep his guilt Mark calls the cops and tells them about the body of the lawyer in the woods without disclosing his identity. And when Mark goes there at the location and watches the cops taking the body, he gets caught and the police interrogate him about the body and his connection.

Now Mark is in trouble since he cannot get associated with that dead lawyer's case because the lawyer's client can go to the extent of killing anyone to keep his secret. Neither can Mark tell the cops the last words that the lawyer had said to him before dying.

During all this the FBI and one famous district attorney, Roy Foltrigg (Tommy Lee Jones) come in middle, adding to Mark's troubles. They try to make him reveal what he knows in order to charge that lawyer's client. To save himself and his family, Mark finds himself a lawyer Reggie Love (Susan Sarandon). Reggie's dedication and affection to her little client and the district attorney's fight and struggle against the dead lawyer's client is simply brilliant.

So what is the secret? Who is that Client? What has he done, that pushes his own lawyer to the extent to committing suicide? Watch it out and have an awesome legal adventure.

I have tried my best to avoid the spoilers in this post so its only half of the entire plot, the movie as a whole awaits to thrill you and take you in the world of these brilliant and extraordinary characters.