Most critics find The Client a brisk, competent thriller and a smaller-scale, more human John Grisham adaptation. The praise clusters on Susan Sarandon’s lawyer, which several reviews single out as the film’s centre, with Tommy Lee Jones’s scenes opposite her also noted. Joel Schumacher is credited with keeping a large cast in order and the plot moving. One later review reserves its warmest words for Brad Renfro as the boy, who is said to hold his own against the veterans.
The reservations are about the script rather than the acting. Several critics call the set-ups predictable and the characterisation broad, which keeps the film involving rather than gripping. Variety is the dissenter, finding it formulaic, short on suspense and only adequately performed, with the opening sequence its strongest stretch. Otherwise the spread is narrow, from mildly enthusiastic to mildly let down, though three of the eight reviews could not be read in full, so the picture is less firm than the numbers suggest.