Mick Haller (Matthew McConaughey) is the Lincoln lawyer. He has no office, instead working out of a chauffeur-driven Lincoln sedan. (This is clearly a good week for car movies.) Mick has a twang, a way with words, and a gleam in his eye. He’s a defence lawyer, which is why the licence plate on his car reads “NTGUILTY”. He’s a hustler, a fixer and a sweet-talker, insincere but awesomely effective. In court, he charms the judges and buys the bailiffs Christmas presents so they’ll bump up his clients on the day’s agenda. One of his clients is a Hell’s Angel, but Mick refuses to try the case because the gang haven’t paid him; instead he asks for a postponement, telling the judge that a very important witness is missing, a “Mr. Green”. The judge gets the message; so do the gang, who duly come up with the cash. Mick smiles raffishly, jiggles the envelope and puts it in his pocket. “Ain’t you gonna count it?” asks the scary-looking biker. “I just did,” replies our boy, and winks at him charmingly.
The first 15 minutes of The Lincoln Lawyer – in which all the above is laid out, with a couple of glorious soul-funk numbers on the soundtrack as the Lincoln roams the streets – is hugely enjoyable. The rest is pretty good, except that it behaves like the first 15 minutes never happened. Mick is no longer a likeable rogue, just an excellent lawyer seeking redemption for a past mistake (he wants to “make it right,” he says repeatedly). The Lincoln itself disappears, and in fact plays only a peripheral part in the story; Mick might as well be a proper lawyer with an office and a secretary. What remains is a solid courtroom drama, and director Brad Furman amps up the style in the second half to jazz up the narrative. The visuals get edgier, with lots of little zooms and more handheld camera – but the style, like the Lincoln itself, starts to feel like a gimmick.
Still, the film gets its hooks in you. “What am I missing here?” asks Mick early on, faced with a simple yet intractable case, and the mystery angle – looking for clues, the missing piece in the puzzle – makes it temporarily irrelevant that the Lincoln is gone and our anti-hero has turned into a hero. A prostitute has been badly beaten, and a rich young man with no criminal record (Ryan Phillippe) has been charged with the crime. Ryan insists he’s been set up – but it soon becomes clear that Ryan hasn’t been telling the whole truth. What else is he lying about? And why did he specifically ask for Mick as his lawyer, when he could’ve hired anyone?
Needless to say, those answers can’t be divulged here. There are lots of clever details, though, and only a few niggly questions (I’m still not sure what the snitch had to gain by double-crossing the prosecutor, if that’s indeed what he does). There’s also a splendid cast of character actors, including William H. Macy – who looks shaggier and more hangdog by the year – as a private investigator, Bob Gunton as a patrician lawyer and Marisa Tomei, now 40-something and triumphantly un-Botoxed, as Mick’s unusually amicable ex-wife.
One of the best moments – though it’s just a tiny moment – comes when Tomei (who’s also a lawyer) gives away something about the case, and our hero simply nods and pretends he knew it all along, far too smart to betray his ignorance when he can pump her for more information. It’s good to be reminded that he is indeed a slippery character – though not as slippery as he might’ve been, nor as sleazy as those first 15 minutes make him appear. At one point he’s like a legal version of the priest in Hitchcock’s I Confess, knowing his client’s guilty secret yet unable to reveal it due to attorney-client privilege, forced instead to cross-examine witnesses and do his best in court like a dutiful lawyer. There’s a twist, of course, but it still seems too pious. Anyone who winks at bikers and works out of the back seat of a car shouldn’t have to be so ethical.
DIRECTED BY Brad Furman
STARRING Matthew McConaughey, Ryan Phillippe, Marisa Tomei
US 2011 118 mins.
