Denzel Washington wears an unidentified watch

Denzel Washington plays Gray Grantham in The Pelican Brief, an investigative journalist at the Washington Herald who becomes the only person a law student can trust after her theory about two Supreme Court assassinations puts her in danger. Alan J. Pakula directed this 1993 thriller, adapted from John Grisham's novel, and it pairs Washington with Julia Roberts in a film that is more paranoid procedural than action movie. Grantham is a reporter who knows how to work sources and protect them, and Washington plays him as calm and professional even when the conspiracy reaches into the White House. The film is essentially a two-hander, with Roberts running from assassins and Washington trying to verify her story before publishing. Pakula had directed All the President's Men, and The Pelican Brief has some of that film's interest in the mechanics of journalism, even if it never quite reaches those heights. His watch has not been identified.