The Lincoln Lawyer

Here's another "based on a book" that I actually enjoyed, most likely because the author, Michasel Connelly, had a bit of a hand in it. This one stars Matthew McConnaughey. He plays a high priced L.A. lawyer Mickey Haller who, due to a high caseload, does a lot of business from his Lincoln car. Early on it is revealed that he lost his driver's license recently so has a chauffeur to drive him around. They go from court room to bail bonds office, and via phone he communicates with his office girl and his investigator (William H Macy). Many of his clients are the "wrong side of the tracks" kind of people.


Mickey is given a client lead from a bail bondsman (John Leguizamo). Louis (Ryan Phillippe), a son of a wealthy real estate agent (Frances Fisher), is accused of beating a woman he met at a bar. He claims he is the victim, that he was jumped when he went to her apartment. She claims he beat her and tried to rape/murder her. Mickey finds out salacious facts about the woman, so her case starts to appear like she is gold-digging for a big settlement. But soon he is also finding out facts about Louis and his mother too.

Josh Lucas plays the prosecuting lawyer (pretty good), Marisa Tomei is Mickey's amicable ex-wife (not used well except to provide support for Mickey, I was hoping she would have a bigger role in the case). Bryan Cranston (underused) and Michael Pare (too caricature) play cops associated with this case and an old case. Laurence Mason has a good small role as the streetwise chauffeur the drives Mickey around.

Knowing that it was based on a book kind of already tells me this will make Mickey out to be a hero and get his man/woman. It is more a matter of watching McConnaughey return back to a type of role that is good at, instead of the many crappy romantic comedies he's been criticized for, and the suspense of finding out how Mickey is going to solve the case. He is smart but not unbelievably so. The film takes care to show several of Mickey's other cases and how they all affect each other and how Mickey uses various clients for his purposes; although he is always looking out for himself and may bend the law, he does have a moral layer and not portrayed as a villain, just a really smart and canny lawyer.

I was also surprised at the amount of humor, mostly wisecracking and funny, in the movie, considering people are beaten and murdered in this film. At first glance this would not have been my type of film based on a synopsis, but I found it pretty entertaining. Connelly said he was pretty happy with this adaptation, so that's one endorsement!


Incidentally I hear Lions Gate is thinking of a sequel as well as a television series. I hope they measure up to this first film.