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: The Paper

One of the real travesties of the information age has been the decline and fall of the daily newspaper. For so long, It was the source of news. Television news always had the sheen and soft focus of something in a daily battle for ratings but for genuine journalism, you couldn't beat print media in the eyes of most people. However with the rise of new media, the daily newspaper has struggled to identify its raison d'etre. Is it news or commentary? If the news in a daily paper is 24 hours old by the time it hits the news stands, what is the point of it? Today's film is an examination of a day in the life of a New York tabloid editor right at the end of the glory days in early '90s, right before the internet came and changed the game forever, The Paper.

The Paper

Michael Keaton leads an all star cast as Henry Hackett, the metro editor of the perennially struggling New York Sun. The film follows 24 hours in Henry's life and the life of the newspaper. The film flys along at a terrific pace in what turns out to be a momentous day for all involved. Henry has a big decision to make. He has an interview for a job at a much more upmarket paper, while trying to placate his heavily pregnant wife, the ever lovely Marisa Tomei. He is also locked in a battle with the upwardly mobile shrew Alicia, played with  a bitchy menace by Glenn Close over the direction of the paper and their coverage of a supposedly racially motivated killing in Brooklyn. Their boss, the editor, a chain smoking Robert Duvall gets some bad health news and attempts a reconciliation with his daughter. The paper's star columnist, played with a portentous lunacy by Randy Quaid spends most of the film hiding out in Henry's office for fear somebody is trying to kill him. If that wasn't enough star power, Jason Robards pops up as the paper's publisher. 

If the film has a failure, it is that there is often too much going on during the day however I suppose that is a reality of your average newsroom. The film lurches from one disaster to another but it makes for entertaining viewing and is at times genuinely funny. Some of the best one liners are left to Duvall's ageing editor, Bernie.

Phil: Aw, Jesus, Bernie. Come on with the smoke. You know the doctor found nicotine in my urine again. 

Bernie: Then keep your dick out of my ashtray.

The central fixation of the film is the dichotomy of chasing paper sales while also trying to tell the truth. After the murder of two white businessmen, two minority youths are arrested. Hackett learns that they didn't do it but can't get a source to prove it. Alicia feels they should go with a headline indicating guilt as they can't prove innocence. It plays out entertainingly and the acerbic back biting between the two is a joy to watch. The ending when it comes is thrilling and funny in equal measures.

The ensemble cast give some great performances, particularly Keaton as the intelligent and witty Editor capable of working anywhere but drawn to the madcap world of tabloid journalism, giving some wonderfully profane speeches.

Paul Bladden, New York Sentinel: Well, I hope you're satisfied, asshole! You just blew your chance to cover the world! 

Henry: Really? Well guess fucking what? I don't really fucking care. You wanna know fucking why? Because I don't fucking live in the fucking world! I live in fucking New York City! So go fuck yourself! 

[Henry slams down telephone back on the receiver]

All of the stock characters you might expect to find in a newsroom are there, the power hungry bitch, the ageing legend, the drunken columnist. This might irk some people but I found it oddly reassuring, giving the film a base in reality. Cliché's always a kernel of truth a their centre. 

Ultimately, this is a very enjoyable trip of a movie, ending where it begins with the ticking of a bedside clock radio and a radio news announcer signing off:

"Because your whole world can change in 24 hours"

Backed by a strong script and some fine performances, director Ron Howard has put together a little gem of a film that chronicles the ups and downs of an atypical news day married with the everyday difficulties of human life. It's funny and touching but always entertaining. A very enjoyable watch.

Flick of The Day: Only You

This is a very old school film. It harks back to a time of simpler fare, the kind of light romantic comedy that would have populated the cinemas on a weekly basis until the 1960s. This is perhaps most evident by the presence of director Norman Jewison, 84 years young who started off in television in the 1950s before making the leap into feature films, making some very fine films such as In The Heat Of The Night and And Justice For All while blazing new ground in terms of bringing taboo issues to the silver screen.

Only You

This however is not one of these films. As I said, its a trifle, an entertainment, something which will be forgotten as soon as its over. The story is a simple one. Fate (Marisa Tomei) is an English teacher obsessed with faith and destiny, and searching for the soul mate she discovered on a ouija board aged 11, Damon Bradley. So far, so barely plausible. Things take a turn for the worse, when she picks up a phone message, a week before her wedding from a Damon Bradley who is holidaying in Italy. So Fate and her put upon sister, the lovely Bonnie Hunt set off to Italy in search of the mythic Damon, visiting Venice, Rome and Positano while picking up Robert Downey Jr along the way. 

Of course, the real star is the beautiful Italian scenery from the Venetian canals to the Tuscan countryside. Jewison shoots the film with an eye for the spectacular, producing the best ad the Italian Tourist Board never commissioned. That said, there is much to enjoy. Downey Jr is charming in an off kilter sort of way and Tomei  is excellent coming off a trio of career highlights in My Cousin Vinny, Chaplin and The Paper. The plot may be deeply implausible, asking us to suspend our disbelief at times to the point of incredulity but it has a good heart, is well acted and finishes well which is more then can be said for so many pictures of this oeuvre.

While not a patch on Jewison's previous foray into rom-com territory, the enjoyable Moonstruck, this is a decent film and worth your time on an otherwise empty day if only to get you thinking about booking that Roman Holiday.