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A Family Thing (film) Rated PG-13, 1996 Starring James Earl Jones and Robert Duvall Written by Billy Bob Thornton and Tom Epperson MGM, United Artists Robert Duvall stars as Earl Pilcher, a businessman in a small Arkansas town who has spent his whole life in one place with one set of beliefs. Those beliefs are shattered when Earl's mother dies, leaving behind a letter with an astounding confession: she was not Earl's real birth mother. Earl was the product of his father's affair with a black housekeeper, raised by the Pilchers after the woman died in childbirth. The letter also contains a final request for Earl to find his half-brother Raymond Murdock (James Earl Jones), a Chicago policeman. When Earl finds Ray in the Windy City, it is far from a tearful reunion. Ray blames Earl for his mother's death, and Earl is ambivalent at best about his newly-discovered background. But an accident forces Early and Ray to spend time together, and to come to some kind of mutual understanding. - Scott Renshaw (99 Live: The Video Magazine) |
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