A TRIP to see a John Grisham adaptation is like going to McDonald's - you know precisely what you're going to get, and in what form it will be served up, but, nevertheless, if you're in the mood, it's always predictably satisfying.

I'll admit that I've never read any of the now famous novels, which include The Pelican Brief, The Client and the excellent A Time To Kill. But I can derive from their film adaptations that they are plot-driven, with a readability factor that made Grisham the best-selling author of the 1990s.

Runaway Jury has ensured its place in the history books by placing Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman on screen together for the first time - and scripting a special scene in the gents just so they can have a face-off.

It also boasts a terrific cast, with John Cusack, Rachel Weisz and character specialists like Bruce McGill as the judge. And, yes, that is Flashdance's Jennifer Beals as a member of said jury.

The film begins with (cameo man) Dylan McDermott smiling like a toothpaste advertise-ment in a home video at his son's birthday, and then bouncing into work so happily that we can just see that target forming on his forehead.

When he is shot and killed, his wife, encouraged by her idealistic lawyer Wendell Rohr (Hoffman), brings a case against the company who knowingly allowed guns to be sold on the black market.

So the money men call in their own "big gun", jury consultant Rankin Fitch (Hackman), to ensure the verdict will go only one way - their way.

Fitch gets to work with a team of helpers, following every potential juror, assessing their value for his own ends, and utilising modern technology to assemble a dossier on their dirty secrets.

But he hadn't counted on the double team of Marlee (Weisz) and Nick (Cusack) who, once they establish Nick's position on the jury, aim to manipulate the verdict for their own ends.

I wasn't expecting much from Runaway Jury - but came away very pleasantly surprised.

By altering the book (where the case was against big tobacco) and tapping into two very pertinent modern issues - gun control and the notion of the Big Brother surveillance state - it has managed to be a sort of Hollywood and mainstream version of Michael Moore.

Cusack is perfect in his standard everyman role, but Dustin comes over as a weedy good guy who'd be no match for Hackman's plotting, and the moral polarisation of some characters at the conclusion is a little disappointing.

One might wonder why H&H thought this film was the one to star in together, as it's certainly no comparison with Heat, the Michael Mann project which brought Pacino and de Niro face to face for the first time on celluloid.

But, bottom line, it's a cracking good yarn - just the thing for a cold January.