Matthew McConaughey was recently in the film: The Lincoln Lawyer, and I didn’t think he was too bad considering when I see him in movies I usually end up feeling nauseated and angry at the sheer implausibility of rom-coms.
But this one isn’t a rom-com! Hooray! No, it isn’t a historical drama based on Abraham Lincoln’s little-known career in the justice system, I somehow don’t think McConaughey could quite pull off the sideburns. Instead he plays a prosecutor who finds himself with the wrong kind of client: a murderer! Who’d have thought a prosecutor’s client could be a murderer. I know, it’s out there.
So why’s it called The Lincoln Lawyer? I hear you ask. Well he doesn’t have an office, instead he works from the back seat of his Lincoln, and for some reason that is cool. Very cool.
Now, to set the scene, McConaughey’s character, Mick Haller is defending local rich boy: Louis, who is on trial for an attack on a prostitute. At the beginning Louis proclaims innocence but after Haller and his PI investigate further they find an astonishing correlation between this case and a previous case Haller also covered.
In the previous case, Haller’s client is charged for the rape and murder of a prostitute and is put behind bars. The attack is all but identical to the attack Louis is on trial for, apart from the fact this prostitute managed to fight him off and knock him out. Haller realises that an innocent man has gone to jail and it is in fact Louis who is going about raping and killing prostitutes. The unfortunate thing is though, Louis is protected by the confidentiality he has with his lawyer, so Haller can’t say a word to anyone.
I thought that the twist, if you can call it that, is really quite good and probably has to be credited to Michael Connelly who wrote the book this film bases itself on. It’s a clever plot twist that provides a satisfying end to it all. The ending is really good and well thought out, I was figuring it out as it was being shown on screen which is always a good thing. Sometimes knowing what happens too soon can ruin a movie.
Although there isn’t exactly a load of hardcore action to get your pulse racing here, the film provides some excellent court-room drama that will keep you on tenterhooks, especially the final courtroom scene. It’s a simple movie that does its job well, it lets the story take centre stage.
The performances of the actors are also good though, McConaughey suit’s the role really well, he has that boyish charm he always has but also finds himself in those intense scenes that he manages to pull off quite easily. He should do more like this, and less like Failure to Launch.
Marissa Tomei plays Haller’s ex-wife who becomes his current girlfriend, sort of. She performs well and has good chemistry with McConaughey, unlike Sarah Jessica Parker in that other movie! William H. Macy is also in it, playing Haller’s PI, he plays the role well, what did you expect? And Ryan Phillippe, who’s been in all those movies you can never remember the titles of. He plays his character well, portraying an innocent scared little boy one minute and then a complete psychopath the next.
It has to be said too, that The Lincoln Lawyer has the cool factor. I don’t really know why it has it, I can’t really pinpoint the reason, but it definitely has it. It’s just cool, the characters are cool, the setting is cool, his Lincoln is cool, even his driver is cool! Only The Rock could make this movie any cooler.
Overall I was pleasantly surprised by it. Not just at the fact I didn’t taste vomit watching Matthew McConaughey, but also because it was actually a very good thriller that kept me interested and on the edge of my seat all the way through. It’s actually better than some of the ‘bigger’, more publicised movies that were doing the rounds at the same time, if there‘s to be a sequel, I‘d watch it.
Final Verdict: 4 Stars. Gripping and entertaining stuff.
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