When watching “A Time to Kill” one cannot but feel empathy at one point or another. Whether it’s for Tonya Hailey, the little girl that was raped, or Cora Mae Cobb, mother of Billy Ray Cobb. This movie brings you on a moral roller coaster filled with many emotions. While most of the empathy is felt by both the characters and audience, there are moments when the only empathy felt is by the viewer. One of these moments is when Carl Hailey is paying Jake Brigance for his lawyering services. As Jake finishes counting he points out that there is only nine hundred dollars of the thousand he’s due. Carl’s only response is that he has kids to feed. Jake promptly retorts so do I. This simple interaction brings forth much empathy from the viewer. Yet it does it in such away that it is not obvious.

Empathy is felt because of the simple fact everyone knows how it feels to have money troubles. The movie up to that point showed that Jake has been experiencing income problems. This is observed while talking with his secretary about how behind on payments they were. The fact that Carl was a black man working in the south meant money was also tight for him too, not to mention having four children. This build up leads to this main point of neither of them having cash to spare. That added to the feeling of hopelessness, the view can’t help but have empathetic feels to both. Though the best selling point of this scene is how they both respond physical. Jake’s frustration is and has a look that matches. Though Carl has the look of someone thinking, not giving up. People upon seeing both can be moving to two different types of empathy, sorrow for the situation and or a push of solidarity, belief and want of them to keep going. The reason why this is not obvious is because no one is asking for empathy, no one is asking for understanding. That’s why when you feel empathy in this scene you barely feel it unless your looking for it.

Now some may question if this is real empathy or just something fake. What has to be remembered though is that the emotion of empathy is felt by the viewer here. While the situation may be fake, an act, just some movie, emotion is not that simple. While watching any movie the view sets themselves into the story. Anything they feel is real in that time the movie is running. The feeling of empathy for this scene is far from fake and since it is almost hidden, it can’t anything but real. It is a subconscious empathy, one that can’t be faked even if one wanted too.

“A Time to Kill” is an intense movie, with many moments for empathy. Though the jail scene where Jake and Carl work out the payment, in Carl’s cell, is one of the few scenes were the only ones allowed to feel empathy are the viewers. Neither Jake or Carl can afford to be swayed by the other, which in my opinion makes viewers all the more empathetic towards the two. Making this scene one of the best instances of empathy invoked.