This potential news feels at once appropriate and not so much. Tony Scott is purportedly considering taking the director’s chair on The Associate, an adaptation of the John Grisham novel of the same name, about a young lawyer thrust into a high-profile law firm under the blackmailing guise of a corrupt defense contractor looking for secrets. [First Showing] Screenwriter William Monahan (The Departed) and movie star Shia LaBeouf have both been on board pretty much since the novel was released on book shelves.
Scott is a (semi) reliable action director, but he’s never done corporate espionage (Enemy of the State comes somewhat close, I guess) and, to be honest, it seems to “easy” for the man. Which is to say it doesn’t seem overbearingly-convoluted enough. But then Scott has made a late career out of convoluted, taking films that once were simple kidnapping tales (Man On Fire) and turning them into rampaging, green-tinted, jump-cutted morality tales. Or a biopic (Domino) into a half flicker film/half satire, or a movie about a time traveling cop (Deja Vu) into, well, okay that one was always crazy.
Let us remember the two most successful Grisham adaptations (The Rainmaker and Runaway Jury) were directed by a money-grubbing Francis Ford Coppola and studio friend Gary Fleder, respectively. The courtroom rarely abides visual creativity.
Provided Scott takes the job, will his style work for corporate intrigue?