Brad Furman’s snappy legal thriller, The Lincoln Lawyer, has one thing in common with Gregory Holbit’s 2007 Fracture: both stories spring from the idea of someone rich who, in lieu of planning a clever crime, plans instead a clever abuse of legal process. In Fracture, the bad guy, played by Anthony Hopkins with unparalleled arrogance and contempt, seeks to put double jeopardy to his advantage by saddling the prosecution with a lot of inadmissible evidence. The Lincoln Lawyer is kinkier. A rich kid, played with equally unparalleled odiousness by Ryan Philippe, tries to force a defense attorney (Matthew MacConaughey) into securing what amounts to a second acquittal. 

And that’s where the similarities end. The Lincoln Lawyer has the look and feel of a really good television show from the 1970s. I mean that as a compliment, because the movie is very good at what it wants to do, but I also mean to suggest the things that it’s not interested in. Don’t expect the interesting visuals or haunting moods of a fim like Fracture. The Lincoln Lawyer is about different kinds of confrontations, but not about the implications of those confrontations — in the way that, say, every encounter in Chinatown seems to involve the whole history of Los Angeles. It’s certainly not about the oddity of practicing criminal defense law from the back seat of a Town Car. Rather, The Lincoln Lawyer is a sort of legal kung fu picture, its characters engaged in one outsmarting maneuver after another. Thanks to great star power — Matthew MacConaughey has never done better work, and he’s assisted by the top talents of Marisa Tomei, Ryan Philippe, Josh Lucas, Frances Fisher, Bob Gunton, John Leguizamo, Michael Peña, William H Macy and Laurence Mason — and a well-crafted story line, The Lincoln Lawyer crosses the finish line as fresh as a daisy. But it could easily have been awful, with its made-for-television values. 

Happily, Mr MacConaughey and his director know what they’re doing. We watch with mounting dismay as Mick Haller, a blithe jouster who still keeps a surfboard at home, realizes not only that he has been set up to defend a very guilty man but also how far he will fall if the guilty man succeeds. Haller doesn’t have a lot of friends; almost everyone in his world thinks that the sleaziness of his clients has rubbed off on him. But when you’re the sort of person who is asked, in a crowded elevator, how you can sleep at night, you may be able to tap special resources. Being Matthew MacConaughey, Haller is loaded with the kind of charm that, when it works, makes believers out others. Haller’s team believes in him. His ex-wife (Ms Tomei) almost believes in him; she’s still happy to have sex with him. But Haller also has a restlessness that takes the place of panic. He’s gifted at thinking his way out of tight spots. 

We only wish that Frances Fisher’s part had been a bit bigger. There’s a corker of a final showdown that, masterfully, comes soon after a false ending, and although no small part of its power comes from its being quick and deadly, it left me wanting more of Ms Fisher’s suave but haggard matron. I we suspect that Gregory Holbit would have had a field day directing her.

Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
This entry was posted on Friday, April 1st, 2011 at 6:00 pm.