Film Review | The Lincoln Lawyer

The courtroom drama is a genre whose popularity always baffled me. I can understand our atavistic fear of the courtroom, and the thrill that comes with being placed (virtually or otherwise) in a room that decides the fate of somebody we have grown to sympathise with.

Like stories of terminal illness, the courtroom is perfect for lo-fi drama: lives stretched to breaking point in the most clinical, bureaucratically-heavy surroundings.

But that’s precisely it – at the face of it, you can’t escape the fact that it’s all simply so boring. Which is why the pedigree that as a non-initiated outsider I can only assume The Lincoln Lawyer belongs to only baffles me further. Based on a novel by the highly successful Michael Connelly, it belongs to the well-mined tradition plumbed by the likes of John Grisham – potboilers about (often Southern) hard-nosed legal mavericks negotiating through corrupt systems and shady characters.

The fact that Matthew McConaughey is no stranger to the genre – having starred in the Grisham-culled melodrama A Time To Kill in the mid-90s – only reinforces what a cynical construction the whole film is.

Mickey Haller’s (McConaughey) professional reputation in the legal circles of Los Angeles County precedes him: having had his license revoked in the past, he now operates from a Lincoln Town Car, defending the most heinous criminals of the town with sleazy gusto.

But when a wealthy realtor, Louis Roulet (Ryan Phillippe) comes to him for legal advice, Mickey’s cavalier attitude is given a sobering sucker punch. Roulet – playboy and heir to a hefty family business – is accused of brutalising a prostitute. Though he claims that he was set up, Mickey – with the help of his resourceful private investigator Frank Levin (William H. Macy) – uncovers a trail of suspicious clues that lead right back to a previous client of Mickey’s… one who is now locked up for life.

The twists and turns of the legal labyrinth Mickey negotiates in are executed competently and with some relish, as necessary. McConaughey is actually pitch-perfect – either because the sleazy uber-lawyer suits him to a T, or simply because of his previous experience with the genre – and keeps things rolling pleasantly, where they would otherwise have crawled from one dull scene to the next.

The problem here is that director Brad Furman – working on a script by John Romano – brings nothing fresh to the table, so that lazy expository techniques (such as prolonged flashbacks) are thrown in, and slow things down just as they’re getting good. You can picture it working pretty well in a book, but on film it just feels flat.

An underused Marisa Tomei (playing Mickey’s ex-wife) hints at a humanity bubbling under the surface, but the film won’t for a moment let us forget that this is Mickey’s show.

And just as quickly as he is presented as an ethically questionable maverick, Mickey switches to conscientious, compassionate crusader before we’re even allowed to do a double take.

But such are the necessities of the genre… and if the goods are delivered, are we even allowed to complain?  

This week: Thor!