I thoroughly enjoy reading legal thrillers, those taut tales of trials and tribulations (but especially trials, heh). Oh, I also enjoy police procedurals, detective novels, techno-thrillers, historical novels, medical thrillers, mysteries, and so on and so forth, but while I’d never fantasize about being a forensic pathologist, I like to imagine I might have made a good trial lawyer. I have an analytical mind, I like to argue and persuade, I’m good at research…as an undergraduate, I took every law-related course I could find (criminal law, business law, communications law). But I never gave any serious thought to law as a career.
Instead, I worked my way through all 82 “Perry Mason” novels in my teens, and have since plowed through the oeuvres of John Grisham, Robert K. Tanenbaum, Steve Martini, William Bernhardt, Perri O’Shaughnessy, John Lescroart, etc. I’ve read most of Michael Connelly’s novels (the majority aren’t “legal thrillers,” focusing instead on detective-police procedural genre content) and was mildly curious to see what Hollywood would make of “The Lincoln Lawyer.” Admittedly, it had been quite a while since I finished the book and I only vaguely remember anything about it, so there won’t be any “well, in the book they do this, but in the movie they do that” commentary here. Still, I genuinely like Connelly’s books.
Digression: through a curious coincidence, The Lincoln Lawyer was released at approximately the same time as The Conspirator, which is about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and deals with the lawyer for a woman accused on participating in the plot. I’m not sure if anyone else found that even momentarily confusing…
Digression the second: according to IMDB, The Lincoln Lawyer cost $40 million to make. $40 million for a contemporary drama shot on location in Southern California, with no special effects to speak of: can anyone explain where the money went? The production values are fine, everything is slick and professional, but if Insidious could be made for under $2 million, and (to step it up a few notches) The Conspirator (a period film requiring sets and costumes and such) had a budget of $25 million, and Limitless cost $27 million, where did all the Lincoln Lawyer money go? To the cast? How much does Matthew McConaughey earn, anyway? And Marisa Tomei? I’m not begrudging them their salaries, but do the performers—at this level, and for this type of film—really make a significant difference? ”Oh, I was going to see The Lincoln Lawyer, but since it stars Jake Gyllenhaal rather than Matthew McConaughey, forget it!” Or “I don’t like movies about lawyers, but I’ll make an exception and buy a ticket for The Lincoln Lawyer because Marisa Tomei is in this one, and I loved her in My Cousin Vinny and The Wrestler!”
To be honest, the cast of The Lincoln Lawyer is good, filled with old pros. Matthew McConaughey seems to be doing a Woody Harrelson imitation and doesn’t fit my mental image of the novel’s borderline-shyster lawyer Mickey Haller, but he grows in the role as the film goes on, while Marisa Tomei demonstrates she can actually act, albeit in a subsidiary role as Mickey’s ex-wife and occasional courtroom adversary. Most of the drama in The Lincoln Lawyer is generated by the conflict between McConaughey and Ryan Phillipe as his murderous client, and as a result the other characters tend to make brief, flashy appearances then quickly fade into the background. Still, performers like William H. Macy, Michael Peña and Trace Adkins do a decent job with the footage they’re allotted.
And the plot is sturdy enough: lawyer Mickey Haller is hired to defend rich young Louis Roulet, accusing of savagely beating a prostitute. Louis swears he was framed, but Mickey gradually loses faith in his client’s innocence, and even suspects Louis was the man responsible for a murder for which one of Mickey’s clients was (unjustly, it now appears) convicted. How can Mickey reconcile his professional ethics, the law, justice, and morality?
In “legal”-themed novels and films, actual trials don’t take up the whole book or the movie’s entire running time: there are investigations, back-stories, drama outside the courtroom, and so forth. Novels have some advantage in presenting (and explaining) the intricacies of the law: films have to go for externalised action and drama rather than descriptions of people submitting writs and making legal motions. The Lincoln Lawyer follows the usual legal-film pattern, building nicely to a relatively brief but effective climactic trial sequence (then follows this with two or three “action” codas). We get the usual courtroom tropes: harsh cross-examination, surprise witnesses, rebukes from the judge, sniping between the opposing parties, last-minute revelations.
However, The Lincoln Lawyer slips in two fairly crucial areas. First, the protagonist is not depicted as an especially talented “law-talking guy” (as Lionel Hutz would phrase it): Mickey is a mercenary glad-hander who apparently prefers to cut deals rather than go to trial. While this may be realistic—and Mickey isn’t supposed to be a crusader for justice, particularly since his clientele consists largely of low-lifes—it makes his character a bit more difficult to like. The film has to tread a fine line between Mickey-the-Funny-Shyster and Mickey-the-Handsome-Moral-Guy, and this sets up an unspoken conflict for the viewer, since he’s neither one nor the other. And he doesn’t even evolve from one into the other completely, although he does develop some sort of conscience as the film goes along. We admire Mickey’s clever trickery which ultimately sees justice done, but we don’t necessarily admire him personally (particularly since he largely reverts to his old habits as the movie ends).
Furthermore, since the moral compass of the trial is skewed (the film audience knows Louis is guilty but Mickey still has to work for his acquittal), there is no opportunity for any stirring closing argument or cathartic conclusion. Again, this might be “realistic”—justice isn’t always achieved openly and everyone has to develop their own moral code which is neither black nor white—but there is an expectation on the part of the audience that a narrative film will have some dramatic closure, and in a “legal” film, that usually comes in the major trial sequence. Instead, The Lincoln Lawyer spreads its conclusion over a series of concluding scenes, which lessens the impact slightly.
Earlier, I questioned the $40 million budget for The Lincoln Lawyer from the perspective of “I don’t see that $40 million on the screen.” Another viewpoint might be, what does this film have to offer that would justify a $40 million investment? Do the subject matter and/or performers seem likely to draw large audiences to cinemas? Frankly, if I’d been a producer examining the project, I don’t think I’d have been sanguine that a legal thriller—essentially, a drama with more talk than action, aimed at adults—would have had the potential to make money. It would have seemed perfectly satisfactory as a TV-movie or direct-to-DVD, but a theatrical film competing with flashy blockbusters? *shakes head dubiously* (It’s currently earned $58 million worldwide, which isn’t bad, but remember the budget)
That said, The Lincoln Lawyer is a satisfactory thriller with a twisty plot and good performances, and as such is slightly above average entertainment. It’s not Inherit the Wind or Twelve Angry Men or even “Perry Mason,” but the running time passed swiftly and painlessly and I didn’t feel defrauded.
