The ethical impact of this movie is relatively central to the work. The moral is not exactly straight forward. Of course the rednecks who did this terrible thing to a little girl deserved to die and her father did not deserve the death penalty for killing them. One moral is that rape and murder are both bad, but that crimes based on a sense of denied justice are more pure than those which are racist and sexist. Perhaps the most profound moral, though, is that racism and injustice in one area of life inevitably will lead to crime and destruction in others. Carl Lee would never have taken the law into his own hands, whether temporarily insane or not, if the law were doing a good job of taking affairs into its hands. If it were not for the ingrained racism of the culture that allowed white men to rape black children with impunity, there would have been no need for a black father to take his gun into the courtroom in revenge. Moreover, Carl Lee finds he cannot get a fair trial because of the intervention of racism. The KKK interferes with his due...

This further highlights the moral that racism interferes with the smooth operation of justice, and in so doing creates crime and desolation around it.
Another reason to see this film is that it is obviously very good, because so many people have already gone to see it. One knows a film is a good work of populist art when it is capable of drawing a strong audience. This piece has had a very wide audience and was very popular. Thousands of films are produced each year which never get to be shown in theaters across the country or have such a large audience because they simply do not have high enough production standards. These movies don't warrant being released as Hollywood films or shown on the big screen in real theaters; they are merely released as "independent" films and show in tiny second rate facilities. Many other films appear to be good enough to make it to the big screen, only to flop when the audience realizes they are no good. A Time to Kill, however, is obviously a very good movie because it made the cut to be released to real first-run theaters and it was popular among movie going audiences there.

Finally, everyone should go to see a Time to Kill because everyone likes movies. If a person doesn't go to see this movie, they are likely to just go to another R-rated drama or action movie. If you're going to go to a movie or rent a movie, it should be this one because it is R-rated there is no extramarital sex (except the rape of the ten-year-old girl which is not graphically shown and which is obviously considered a crime) and only a little bit of on-screen violence, with little blood and gore. It is not a horrific movie, and it can actually inspire some good thought and feeling. If one is to see a movie, it might as well be a good one. This is probably the best reason of all to see a Time to Kill -- simply because everyone has spare time eventually in which they have nothing better to do than see this flick.