After all the build-up — mainly because it is Julia Roberts' first movie since "Hook" and the second John Grisham novel to be adapted this year, hot on the heels of "The Firm's" blockbuster success — "The Pelican Brief" proves to be a major disappointment.

Though not unwatchable — there are moments here that are quite good, including a couple of chases — the film is way too long (140 minutes), sluggish in its presentation and overly complicated if you haven't read the book.

In fact, the movie of "The Pelican Brief" is quite faithful to the book, and therein lies a large portion of its problems: Too many characters, too much plotting and not enough suspense to keep it all moving.

When Alfred Hitchcock had an overplotted film with too many characters ("North By Northwest" comes to mind), he simply made it so stylish, elegant and thrilling that nobody cared. Director/screenwriter/

co-producer Alan J. Pakula, despite his history with better pictures in this genre ("Klute," "Presumed Innocent"), seems at sea with this one.

The story begins with a hit man assassinating two U.S. Supreme Court justices on the same night, first an aging and ill member of the court (Hume Cronyn — made up to look older!), who is shot in his bed (despite being surrounded by protective agents), and then a second justice, strangled in a gay porn theater.

As the ineffectual president (Robert Culp) and his cunning chief of staff (Tony Goldwyn) meet with the hapless heads of the FBI (James B. Sikking) and the CIA (William Atherton) to try and cope with the crisis, the film moves from Washington to Tulane University in Louisiana where a young law student (Julia Roberts) is having an affair with one of her professors (Sam Shepard), and both become obsessed with the killings.

While Shepard goes into an alcoholic stupor, Roberts holes up in the library and soon comes up with a theory about why the justices were killed, a theory involving land buyouts, an endangered species of bird and a powerful billionaire businessman, which becomes known as "The Pelican Brief." She's not sure whether to believe it herself, however, and simply passes it on to Shepard. But when he gives it to a friend (John Heard) who is an FBI lawyer, the brief soon becomes the talk of the White House. It seems the implicated businessman contributed heavily to the president's campaign, and if the theory comes to light, it could jeopardize his re-election.

Soon, Roberts becomes a target of unknown assassins and finds herself on the run, eventually linking up with a reporter (Denzel Washington), who tries to help her. And, of course, both become targets.

Full of cameo roles filled by high-profile actors, the performances here are uniformly good, though the film's real scene-stealer is John Lithgow, hilarious as Washington's wry editor. Roberts is well-cast in the lead, as is Washington, though he unwisely plays the character as dour, with very little emotion.

But the film's failure is ultimately the fault of Pakula, who lets too many scenes run on too long, never allows us to get to know any of the characters very well — especially Roberts! — and ultimately sacrifices suspense for long-winded explanations.

One of the things that made the book such an enjoyably rapid read was the cat-and-mouse game played by Roberts' character, cleverly coming up with new ways to elude her pursuers, both the bad guys and the good guys. But little of that is in evidence here.

Too bad. What could have been the season's lone crackerjack suspense-thriller is instead tepid and tedious.

"The Pelican Brief" is rated PG-13 for some gruesome violence, profanity and implied sex.