Flick of The Day: The Lincoln Lawyer

Once upon a time John Grisham was the king of the legal thriller, where every new book was snapped up by a studio as soon as it was released. The Firm, The Pelican Brief, The Client, The Rainmaker, the list goes on. However times change and Grisham has expanded his oeuvre away from pure legal drama. Step in Michael Connolly, the crime writer with a strong following for his Harry Bosch series with his first legal thriller, The Lincoln Lawyer, a twist filled tale and today's flick of the day.

The Lincoln Lawyer

Matthew McConaughey is Mickey Haller, the low rent lawyer of the title, so called because he conducts most of his business from the back of a Lincoln town car. He specialises in getting guilty men off for cash fees, in short he is as low rent as his clients. His newest client though is different. A wealthy spoiled brat played by Ryan Phillipe called Louis who has requested him by name. He is accused of brutally beating a young woman though protests his innocence. Mickey and his investigator begin to dig deeper into his story and the more they find out, the more they doubt his story. The case bares striking similarities to a murder which Mickey unsuccessfully defended a few years back and he now fears he helped send an innocent man to prison. Of course all is not as it seems and Mickey is forced to question whether his own client is trying to frame him.

McConaughey is pitch perfect as the charming lawyer with an air of sleaze. Haller is both a brilliantly tricky customer inside the courtroom and out of it. The scene where he completely outwits both the prosecutor and his own client is thoroughly entertaining.  There is a fine supporting cast to help carry the film along including the terminally underrated William H Macy as Mickey's investigator and Marisa Tomei in an underdeveloped role as Mickey's ex wife. There is also a blink and you'll miss it performance from Bryan Cranston.

Mick Haller: When do you retire, Lankford? 

Detective Lankford: When do I retire? 

Mick Haller: Yeah. 

Detective Lankford: Eighteen months. Why? 

Mick Haller: I wanna make sure I show up the next morning so I can kick your ass.

Ryan Phillipe makes the most of his role as the scheming Louis. He is a truly dislikeable character without any redeeming features.

 Films like this live or die by how clever the plot is. Thankfully, this is clever enough to keep you guessing till the end. Sure its nothing more then multiplex fluff but it is well crafted and entertaining fluff. Something so many modern films fail to achieve. Stylish and suspenseful it passes a few hours pleasantly.

Frank Levin: [looking out of top floor window] Your so vain. Nobody would care if you killed yourself. 

Mick Haller: It'd look cool. What do you think the last thing to go through your mind would be? 

Frank Levin: Your asshole. 

Mick Haller: Yeah.

All in all, a worthy addition to the genre and the kind of old school thriller based on a best seller that just doesn't get made too often these days. Why bother paying for the rights to a novel when you can just adapt a video game or television show from the 70s?

Flick of The Day: AntiTrust

There are some films that are worth seeing because they define greatness, they are the peak of the art form: Citizen Kane, Laurence of Arabia, etc. Then there are films that are worth seeing simply for the enjoyment of the genre be it thrillers or action pictures. Then there is that third category, films that by any measure are poor: badly scripted, irregularly acted, or perhaps laughable special effects but have something compelling about the story or the performance that makes it entertaining. 

Antitrust is just such a film. The setup is thus: Milo Hoffman, a confused looking Ryan Phillipe, is an idealistic young programmer who joins Gary Winston's NURV Corp (Never Underestimate Radical Vision). Winston is Tim Robbins doing his best impression of Bill Gates. Well, an evil Bill Gates, if such a thing existed. The real joy of this film is how completely over the top Robbins' performance is. Of course, as you've already guessed, all is not well at NURV, though I think even the most paranoid viewer won't how imagine how outlandishly bad NURV is.

Look out for the hidden surveillance centre camouflaged as...a day car centre. The tale told for all its faults is compelling enough and you may find yourself cheering at the ending, its just the poor script that lets this film down, take for instance this jargon heavy exchange:

Gary: We've loaded a back door to receive SYNAPSE transmissions on all of our OS software for the past 6 years. We've developed compression schemes and file formats that achieve conductivity, but.. We have a problem. You know what that problem is?

Milo: Ah, your adaptors can't overcome the band width limitation of wireless hand helds 

Gary:That's right

It's not all like this of course but it would help if Ryan Phillipe looked like he understood half the words coming from his mouth.
All in all, worth a look if you have an otherwise empty evening in front of yourself.