The Firm is a legal thriller television series that began airing in February 2012 on AXN, and is a sequel to the 1991 John Grisham novel of the same name and its 1993 film adaptation.
[4] The 2012 television show picks up on the story of Mitchell Y. McDeere and his family ten years after the fictional setting of the 1991 novel and 1993 film.
[1][5] In the original film and book, McDeere helped topple the Memphis law firm of Bendini, Lambert & Locke that protected a Chicago organized crime syndicate,[6] resulting in mob convictions.
[9] Throughout the season, the deceased mob boss' son contemplates seeking revenge on Mitch who was a cause of his father's prison term.
[7] The following are the regular and recurring cast members in The Firm:[11] The concept of bringing these characters to television had been in the works for a few years with CBS having formerly been the expected network.
[13] The show's writers included Alyson Feltes, Peter Noah, David Feige, William Rothko, Vincent Angell, and Jonathan Shapiro.
[29] On July 19, 2011, CBS filed a lawsuit against Reiter and Entertainment One "for tortious interference with contract, breach of contract, and breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing" because after CBS declined to commission a series from his script after paying him for it, Reiter reworked it, and Entertainment One agreed to produce it.
[30] Both the novel and the film recount the story of an upstart attorney who unknowingly was hired by an organized crime enterprise's legal team.
[18] He became a whistleblower to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and brought down the corrupt Memphis law firm with Chicago mob ties.
[35] The week the film was released, Grisham and Michael Crichton evenly divided the top six paperback spots on The New York Times Best Seller list.
[9] Mike Hale of The New York Times, however, notes that conflict with the mob "...doesn’t jibe with the film, which ended with his having reached a détente with them while avoiding witness protection."
[83] The AXN broadcast broadens the shows markets to over 125 territories and countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America, Central Europe, Germany, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Russia, and Spain.
"[89] [90] Prior to its initial airing, Entertainment Weekly critic Melissa Maerz gave the show a B rating, stating that "For a supposed update, The Firm sometimes feels like a relic from a bygone era.
"[6] However, she notes that McDeere is "an old-school, self-made hero" that you can't help rooting for and that The Firm is a "straightforward, one-man-against-the-system story" of "the scrappy, Everyman lawyer fighting against Big Corruption" that is naturally compelling.
[7] Los Angeles Times television critic Mary McNamara presents arguments that the show has low prospects for success: "It isn't the flashbacks or muddled storytelling, the liberal white moralizing or ridiculous inconsistencies that threaten to deep-six 'The Firm,' it's the washed-out sepia tone of the legal thriller itself.
[91] While giving the show two stars, Gail Pennington of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch says "'The Firm' is tedious but not terrible; whether it will be watchable depends, one, on how much you like legal procedurals and, two, how the ongoing McDeeres-in-jeopardy plot is handled in future episodes.
He also notes that the characters incorporate "nods to classic thrillers of the past" in a manner that is "in keeping with that old-fashioned element that wafts through the show".
[10] Wiegand considers the unusual 22-episode investment a safe one because "The cast is appealing and the story line is not only compelling but also deals with fascinating moral complexities.