Factual error: Near the end of the movie, Agent Terrence asks Mitch why he didn't release the recording to the media. Mitch replies that it would have been against the law. This is actually incorrect. Tennessee, where the movie is based, is a one-party consent state. Which means only one party needs to give consent to a conversation being recorded. That one party is Mitch McDeere.
The Firm (1993)
Plot summary
Directed by: Sydney Pollack
Starring: Gene Hackman, Tom Cruise, Ed Harris, Hal Holbrook, Jeanne Tripplehorn
Harvard Law School grad, Mitch McDeere, is made an offer he can’t refuse. To recruit Mitch, a prestigious Memphis law firm dangles a lucrative salary, a Mercedes, and paying off his college loans as incentives. Haunted by his humble beginnings and a family secret, Mitch seizes the opportunity. His wife, Abby, is reluctant, however. Mitch soon discovers things seem a bit peculiar. The firm takes an abnormal interest in their employees’ private lives, and Mitch leans that no one ever quits. In fact, the only ones who left the firm died shortly after.
Mitch is contacted by an FBI agent who tells him that the majority of the firm’s clients are Mafia whose money is laundered into offshore accounts. New lawyers at the firm are unaware of the Mafia connection, but they are gradually coerced into the illegal activities and forced to stay. Anyone attempting to leave is murdered. The FBI wants Mitch’s help.
Mitch wants out, but he is being squeezed by the firm, who suspect he may know their secret, and also the FBI, who blackmail him for his assistance. Mitch is unknowingly tied to illegal activities at the firm, and the FBI threatens to have him disbarred if he doesn’t cooperate. To save his law career and escape the firm, Mitch agrees to help the FBI, but he insists that his brother, Ray, who was convicted on trumped-up charges, be released from prison.
Ray West
More mistakes in The Firm
Wayne Tarrance: Get me a map of Louisiana. GET ME A MAP of louisiana.
Trivia: Holly Hunter's role is one of the shortest Oscar nominated performances. She only appears on screen for about six minutes total.
Question: Storing incriminating mafia files in a "kitchen pantry" at the Firm's Cayman Island bungalow with nothing but a standard door and key lock (instead of a steel vault) to secure them seems risky, inept, and downright unbelievable. Is this how it happened in the book or was it changed for the movie?
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Chosen answer: In the book there were indeed incriminating files stored in the firm's condos in the Cayman Islands. There were two adjoining condos, one for senior partners (where incriminating files were stored) and one for junior partners who weren't yet aware of the firm's organized crime connections.
Mobrien316