THE LINCOLN LAWYER- Review

Most cineastes would probably confess to having a slightly troubled relationship with Matthew McConaughey and the films he makes. His filmography includes leading roles in such stinkers as Sahara, Fool's Gold and Failure to Launch. The Lincoln Lawyer marks the first time in living memory that I have enjoyed McConaughey in a movie.

He plays Mick Haller, a lawyer who has recently regained his licence and operates from his mobile office, a chauffeured Lincoln. He's used to representing guilty clients, and with his easy charisma and fast-spoken know-how, he has become very very good at getting them acquitted in court. He encounters something of a crisis when he is retained by Louis Roulet, a rich estate agent who is facing charges of attempting to murder a prostitute and insists upon his innocence even in spite of the privilege of lawyer-client confidentiality. Louis is not what he seems, and for once, Haller might be in over his head.

It's been said elsewhere, but I'll say it again here- The Lincoln Lawyer plays out like a TV legal drama. I don't say it as a bad thing, as you can't help but be reminded of the current standard of American TV drama by the ceaseless Sky Atlantic ads. For me, the difficulty of legal dramas on the big screen, unless your legal drama happens to be A Few Good Men, To Kill A Mockingbird or A Matter of Life and Death, is that it often amounts to quite a predictable narrative.

As we saw most recently in the final part of the Millennium trilogy, in which we sat around waiting for Lisbeth Salander to prove her innocence when we knew she was innocent and we knew that there was a vital piece of evidence that would go a long way towards proving this if the defence would only whip it out and show the judge. Here, the inverse is true with Ryan Phillippe's dastardly portrayal of Roulet- we always kind of know he's guilty.

As the extent of Roulet's villainy is played out, there's not a lot to Phillippe's performance. Admirably, he doesn't ham it up- he's far too good an actor for that. But at the same time, there's a lack of interest on his part that has nothing to do with restraint. He never seems that threatening even in his more depraved moments. Haller is a more interesting character, and McConaughey plays him pretty well. At some points, he looks really kind of gaunt as his character's plight worsens. Never mind how his being gaunt looks approximate to an orange Christian Bale- kudos should be given for a muscular performance that, for once, has nothing to do with taking his shirt off.

The trouble is that amongst the procedural goings-on between Haller and Roulet, we also have turns by William H. Macy, Marisa Tomei, Bryan Cranston, John Leguizamo, Michael Peña, Michael Paré and Josh Lucas. None of them are given much of anything to do, and the characters are established with broad strokes from the outset and then given very little in the way of development from there on out. With Josh Lucas, I can kind of understand, because he's kind of like the non-regional McConaughey, and in his scenes as the prosecutor in Haller's case, he gets up in the orange one's face and I worried we were about to see the film explode from the Blinovitch Limitation Effect.

But with William H. Macy and the rest, there's really no excuse. The misuse of those talents is why I liken it to an episode of a television procedural show. They're full of disposable characters, because the guest cast rotates from one week to the next. Occasionally there's a regular supporting cast, but it's a weird approach to making the film more cinematic, by casting big talents in the roles regularly taken up by supporting artistes on the TV equivalent. Happily, director Brad Furman has more up his sleeve than just that, and it's a very handsome looking film, the visual qualities of which elevate it above CSI: Wherever.

The story may be slim, and the cast underused, but there's a lot to be said in favour of The Lincoln Lawyer. It is a film for adults, and not the mid-teen audience that has so long been Matthew McConaughey's bread and butter, and without any pre-disposal towards legal dramas as a genre, I have to say that it engaged me very much, for the most part. If the leading man can make more films like this from now on, and less films like Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, this performance shows his potential for really, properly good performances.

The Lincoln Lawyer is now showing in cinemas nationwide. ------------------------------------------------------------------
If you've seen The Lincoln Lawyer, why not share your comments below?

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

CONVICTION- Review

There has to be a point, sometime soon, where we all have to sit up and pay Sam Rockwell his dues. It's not that he isn't already appreciated by a great deal of film fans, but after giving the best performance of 2009 in Moon and promptly not getting any awards recognition to that tune, he's got to be one of the best and most underrated actors working today.

His latest role in Conviction may be a supporting turn, but he is so much of what elevates a formulaic legal procedural above the level of a weekday afternoon TV movie on Five. Rockwell plays Kenny Waters, a man seemingly framed by the police department and sentenced to life in prison for first degree murder. The film itself is the true story of his sister Betty Anne, who spends the best part of two decades trying to exonerate him, first by going to law school and later by trying to untangle the legal and bureaucratic issues around his original trial.

The title is transparently a double entendre, referring to both Kenny's sentencing and Betty Anne's belief in his innocence. The film itself leans more towards the latter part of that equation. Hilary Swank plays Betty Anne, in a better role than any she's had since Million Dollar Baby. She's fiercely loyal to her brother and her struggle is one that's very easy to get behind given how the script is constructed. Director Tony Goldwyn's background behind the camera is largely in television, and he brings Pamela Gray's script to the screen with the same fluidity of narrative that you can play with in that medium.

We begin with the salient points- that our two leads are as close as siblings can be, and that Betty Anne Waters attends law school with the aim of proving his innocence. Then for a little while, the story unfolds as a Russian doll would, bringing flashbacks within flashbacks as we first see the circumstances that led to Kenny's arrest, and then the relationship the siblings shared when they were children. If any of this so far sounds slightly familiar, you're probably reminded of last week's The Next Three Days, as I was.

Aside from the obvious distinction of Betty Anne getting her brother out of jail by using the legal system that put him in there, instead of breaking the law as Russell Crowe resolved with his wife, this one is a markedly different watch because of how it takes pains to establish a strong sibling relationship. In films with this kind of plot, the relationship is so often between a husband and wife, or in the case of another recent film, Mother, between a parent and a child. Conviction's central relationship makes it easier to get into it, and to care about the characters.

Sam Rockwell gives another award-worthy performance, and I'm not yet sure if he'll be overlooked once again. As we saw with Jeff Bridges' win last year, the Academy will sometimes nominate an actor for a strong body of work as much as a single recent performance. Whether he gets it or not, he deserves attention for this performance. What he does so well is play the character ambiguously. If you're not familiar with the true story behind this one, you won't know how it turns out. Rockwell brilliantly plays Kenny as a likeable guy with a fierce temper. You come into the same doubts that other characters encounter in the course of their quest to see him freed from prison, making it remarkably tense at times.

It's not perfect, of course, and even though I enjoyed Conviction immensely, I find myself weary with the first fortnight of 2010. This film, The King's Speech and 127 Hours are all good awards candidates, but they're all films in which the topic is so worthy that a good portion of the audience knows how it all winds up. I was in the minority on this one, but reading around the film and finding out what happened afterwards means that it doesn't quite ring true in retrospect. For the most part though, it's handled pretty well.

Conviction tempers melodrama with a compelling human story to make for a legal procedural as watchable as any you're likely to see in 2011. Sam Rockwell continues to be an absolutely magnetic presence, and although Hilary Swank has yet to top some of her previous performances, she's good in this one, and her chemistry with Rockwell is arguably what makes the film. If you don't already know the story, it's able to keep you guessing while still telling an inspirational narrative.

Conviction is now showing in cinemas nationwide.
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If you've seen Conviction, why not share your comments below?

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.