The Lincoln Lawyer (2011) Lionsgate/Drama-Thriller RT: 118 minutes Rated R (some violence, sexual content, language, drug references) Director: Brad Furman Screenplay: John Romano Music: Cliff Martinez Cinematography: Lukas Ettlin Release date: March 18, 2011 (US) Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Marisa Tomei, Ryan Phillippe, William H. Macy, Josh Lucas, John Leguizamo, Michael Pena, Bob Gunton, Frances Fisher, Bryan Cranston, Trace Adkins, Laurence Mason, Margarita Levieva, Shea Whigham, Pell James, Katherine Moennig, Michael Pare, Michaela Conlin, Mackenzie Aladjem, Reggie Baker, Javier Grajeda, David Castro. Box Office: $58M (US)/$86.7M (World)
Rating: *** ½
I like courtroom dramas. I like watching trials and listening to witness testimony. I like slick, smooth-talking lawyers who know how to work the system, irking judges and prosecutors in the process. It stands to reason then I like The Lincoln Lawyer, a courtroom thriller starring Matthew McConaughey (A Time to Kill) as Mick Haller, an attorney who typically represents lowlifes until a major case falls into his lap by chance. Or is it?
Haller has made a career of defending bikers, drug dealers, hookers and others from L.A.’s criminal underbelly. Due to budget constraints, he works out of his Lincoln Town Car (hence the title). Due to a DUI arrest, he has to have a chauffeur (Mason, The Crow) drive him around. His friend, bail bondsman Val (Leguizamo, Carlito’s Way), hands him what will surely be a high-profile case. Louis Roulet (Phillippe, Cruel Intentions), the son of a wealthy real estate mogul (Fisher, Unforgiven), stands accused of viciously assaulting a prostitute.
Louis claims he’s innocent. He says the whole thing is a set-up. It initially looks like he might be telling the truth until information is discovered connecting it to another of Haller’s cases. He urged a client (Pena, World Trade Center) to plead guilty to a murder he swears he didn’t commit. Now it looks like Haller made a colossal error in doing that. Could it be his rich client is guilty? The problem is he can’t do anything about it because telling anybody would violate attorney-client privilege. Is this why Louis asked for Haller by name?
You know what else you need in a movie like The Lincoln Lawyer? A first-rate supporting cast playing interesting characters, that’s what. Marisa Tomei (My Cousin Vinny) leads the pack as a prosecutor who happens to be Haller’s ex-wife. They share custody of a young daughter. They don’t hate each other, but she doesn’t like that he helps free the criminals she tries to put away. Naturally, she has to recuse herself from Louis’ case and hand it off to another prosecutor (Lucas, Sweet Home Alabama).
William H. Macy (Boogie Nights) plays Haller’s investigator Frank. He’s a quirky, hard-working type who’s known his boss/friend for a long time judging by the way they communicate. The cast also includes Bob Gunton (The Shawshank Redemption) as the Roulet family lawyer, Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad) as a cop who doesn’t even bother to hide his disdain for Haller, country singer Trace Adkins as the leader of a biker gang (regular clients of Heller) and Michael Pare (Streets of Fire) as a detective who worked the old murder case.
For the most part, The Lincoln Lawyer is a solid film. It’s part courtroom drama, part character study and part thriller. In the lead, McConaughey does stellar work. After playing dim-bulb characters in a steady stream of dumb rom-coms like How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Failure to Launch and Fool’s Gold, it’s great to see him do what he showed he could do in A Time to Kill, Lone Star and Contact. It’s a reminder he can effectively deliver a dramatic performance if given the right material. He has the necessary swagger and confidence to play a character like Mick Haller. He also has the sincerity to play a man conflicted. For him, it’s a question of morals vs. ethics. He knows what the right thing to do is, but he’s ethically bound to defend his client. How he solves this dilemma is a true display of intelligence, cunning and street smarts.
As a thriller, The Lincoln Lawyer is taut with tension as we watch Louis and Haller engage in a psychological tug of war. Phillippe is perfectly cast as the manipulative rich kid anybody can tell is guilty of something. He’s a total sociopath. He knows he has Haller over an ethical barrel and constantly makes sure he knows it too. An element of mystery comes into play after a major character is killed. I don’t want to reveal too much about this aspect of The Lincoln Lawyer except to say that the last-minute revelation is rather arbitrary and, let’s face it, predictable. I wasn’t surprised.
Based on the best seller by Michael Connelly and directed by Brad Furman (The Take), The Lincoln Lawyer is the kind of movie they don’t make enough of anymore. It involves actual people that could conceivably exist in real life. Nobody has superpowers. None of the action involves CGI effects. It doesn’t leave you with a splitting headache. It’s as down to earth as a movie can get. It benefits from a tight, well-written screenplay by John Romano (Nights in Rodanthe), one that author Connelly admired greatly. The score by Cliff Martinez (Traffic) is reminiscent of 70s urban actioners. Furman’s direction is confident and sure-footed. In short, The Lincoln Lawyer is a good movie. I wouldn’t mind seeing more adaptations of Mick Haller novels.
