Let me start by saying that I used to love John Grisham novels. He was one of my go-to authors when I was in high school. It’s probably a reason I wanted to be a lawyer. Maybe he’s the reason I decided not to. We’ll never know. Anyway, this is a movie adaptation of the John Grisham novel of the same name – and one of my favorites. Not necessarily the best adaptation, but a good movie nonetheless. Plus, it has Wilford Brimley (“if you have diabeetus, you check yer blood sugar and you check it often!) is in this. What’s not to like?

Ok, so the plot – Mitch McDeere (played by Tom Cruise) is graduating from Harvard Law and is highly sought after by firms. One firm in particular – Bendini, Lambert, & Locke – really wants him and bribed the university to find out his highest job offer so far – and added 20% to that. Well, Mitch is from a poor family and he’s pretty darn motivated by the money and the house and car and everything that the firm is throwing at him. So, despite his wife finding the firm to be creepy when they go to Memphis for a visit, he takes the job. He still needs to pass his bar so they have him studying constantly (because “nobody in the history of the firm has ever failed the bar exam”) when, uh oh, two associates at the firm die in a boat explosion in the Cayman Islands. Then Mitch has a weird encounter with FBI agents in a diner. And, yada yada yada, he discovers the firm is into some shady bidness and he’s stuck between a rock and a hard place trying to figure out whether he goes to the dark side and remains loyal to an evil firm or sells out and loses his chance of practicing law by going with the FBI. It’s Sophie’s choice, dammit.

The rest (main part) of the movie is about how Mitch decides what to do to get himself out of this mess. As in every Tom Cruise movie ever, Mitch can be found running and sweating at various points in the movie. More importantly, though, for the purpose of this review and why you should watch it if you’re heading to the Cayman Islands is that a large part of the movie’s plot deals with Grand Cayman. The firm’s luxury getaway is on Grand Cayman. An early ‘tax avoidance’ meeting takes place at what was the Hyatt Regency Hotel and Resort (which was unfortunately destroyed by Hurricane Ivan in 2004 but the fountain entrance is still apparently there). The company’s condo, while never named in the movie, was apparently filmed at the Great House on West Bay Road in Seven Mile Beach. The distinctive roofline is the biggest giveawayThe night-time party, which leads to Mitch’s little indiscretion on the beach, was at The Planet (formerly Rumheads), the beachside bar of the Holiday Inn (since torn down), where the Ritz Carlton now stands.

Another thing to note is that there is a fun nod to Cayman Islands is that there is a diving operator named Barry Abanks who owns “Abanks Diving Lodge” (totally fake but important since diving is a big deal in the movie – “can’t dive and fly in the same day”… not necessarily true but true enough for the movie). The fun thing is that the name Abanks is undoubtedly a spin-off of one of Cayman’s oldest family names – Ebanks. There is even an Ebanks Watersports that, according to their details on TripAdvisor, “specializes in small-group, personalized jet ski tours and luxury private boat charters.” Oh, and while not shown, there is also a reference to Trinity Caves (a real dive spot), the place Abanks’ crew was going to take Avery to dive.

Three final things (only one of which is Cayman Islands related) – #1: At the very end, past all of the credits, when most viewers are long gone unless it’s a Marvel movie and you’re stuck waiting to see what extra 7-second clip there’s going to be, there is a paragraph that reads, “The producers wish to thank the Cayman Islands Government…for their cooperation in the making of this film and acknowledge that the Cayman Islands have strict antidrug and money laundering laws which are rigorously enforced.” I’ll keep that in mind. and #2: according to IMDb, the TV-version of the movie swaps out the line “You’d feel like you were fucked with a dick big enough for an elephant to feel it” with “You’d feel like you had a prostate exam with a beach umbrella to feel it.” Either way, wowzers! And #3: Ed Harris. Oddly younger yet looks almost older than later movies. He had less hair in this movie (in 1993) than he did in 2022 in Top Gun: Maverick (another movie he stars in with Tom Cruise – see what I did there?).