Lawyer Michael “Mickey” Haller (Matthew McConaughey), whose office is the backseat of a chauffer-driven Town Car, plays the game better than anybody else. When rich kid Louis Roulet (Ryan Phillippe) is charged with raping and attempting to kill a prostitute, Haller is the only lawyer he’ll even consider hiring. Roulet, to the surprise of no one, professes his innocence, and Haller thinks he’ll have no trouble convincing a juror to acquit. But the waters start to muddy as Haller looks deeper, and similarities between this case and a previous trial, one which ended in his client being sentenced to life, begin to haunt him.

CRITIQUE

Of the handful of Michael Connelly novels I’ve read, The Lincoln Lawyer is my favorite. No offense to Harry Bosch or Jack McEvoy, but for me Mickey Haller is Connelly’s most engaging character. He’s slimy, sure, but he’s so clever and funny you can’t help but like him. Like most people (and that includes his creator), I never pictured Haller being played by Matthew McConaughey.

There are quite a few reasons for this, the primary one being the fact McConaughey has spent the better part of the last decade squandering his talent in lame romantic comedies. The secondary reason is that I never see McConaughey taking on the lead role in what could be a potential franchise, as his one previous attempt to do so ended in financial (and legal) disaster.

But unlike his work in, say, Failure to Launch or Fool’s Gold, the McConaughey working here isn’t simply cashing the check and phoning it in. And unlike what he attempted to do with Dirk Pitt, McConaughey actually manages to make Mickey Haller his own, needing only a couple minutes to erase any and all doubt he was the right person for the job. He’s the perfect combination of loathsome and ingratiating, so dirty you expect someone to punch in the face but so bright and likeable you’d want to punch anyone who did.

Veteran television writer John Romano’s script is faithful to the novel. The plot here is a sort of skeletal version of that of the book, paring down the book’s 500 pages to something a two-hour movie can handle. Some of the color and flavor of the book is lost, many asides and character moments are understandably jettisoned in order to keep the story manageable and moving along, and some turns of the plot aren’t as clear as they were in the text. Like most of Connelly’s tales (or at least most of the ones I’ve read), the novel’s plot involves the standard assortment of contrivances, coincidences, and occurrences of “thriller logic.”

The movie shares this quality, but it also shares the propulsive, involving nature of Connelly’s narrative. You keep flipping the pages while reading the book, your fingers working overtime even as your brain is telling you to slow down and question things; the movie makes you anxious to get to the end, eager to see how it’s all going to come together, dying to watch Haller pull it all off. Romano doesn’t attempt to gloss over or rectify any of the plot’s more familiar or questionable elements, but he and director Brad Furman attack the storytelling with such gusto--and bring to it so much solid moviemaking skill--that you don’t really mind.

As ridiculous as it can get at times, the movie’s so solidly mounted and fundamentally entertaining that many of its flaws are forgiven. Like the book, the movie is decidedly of its genre--it’s happy not to break any new ground but has a hell of a lot of fun nimbly furrowing old ground.

Actually, there is something new here, and it won’t mean much to most people but I found it a rather nice touch: This movie’s courtroom actually looks like a courtroom. The trial depicted here takes place in one of those brightly lit, garishly furnished courtrooms that looks like they’re still stuck in the seventies. The world Connelly depicts in the book is sort of the flipside of Scott Turow’s fictional Kindle County, so the ornate, dusky courtroom that served as much of the setting in Alan J. Pakula’s adaptation of Presumed Innocent wouldn’t have worked here.

Haller toils in the underbelly of the legal system (or at least what passes for the underbelly in what’s essentially a potboiler), and it’s pleasing to see the movie reflect that in its locations. (On a side note, it’s also nice to hear Bobby “Blue” Bland’s version of “Ain't No Love in the Heart of the City” over the opening credits. That’s a good way of establishing the tone of the movie; that’s exactly the sort of thing a lawyer who tools around in a Town Car would be listening to.)         

As great as McConaughey is (we’re talking great the same way he was great in Dazed and Confused), the movie’s not a one-man show. Furman assembled an exceedingly good cast, filling every important role with someone who’s both recognizable and a great fit. Marisa Tomei, Josh Lucas, and William H. Macy turn in fine supporting work. Phillippe is surprisingly good, and Frances Fisher, playing his mother, brings a nice combination of Faulknerian family rot and soap-opera bitchiness. Hell, even John Leguizamo’s good, and Michael Paré has his best role since The Virgin Suicides (which isn’t saying much, but still). Bryan Cranston (always welcome) and Michaela Conlin (for my money the only compelling reason to watch Bones) have a couple good scenes as detectives working a separate murder case, and Trace Adkins is damned funny as a member of a dope-dealing biker gang.    

This is only the second of Connelly’s works to make it to the big screen (although most of the others are in some stage of development). The first, Blood Work, didn’t turn out so well. That surprisingly flaccid, distressingly obvious Clint Eastwood flick burned a lot of the author’s fans, who were understandably wary about subsequent adaptations.

The Lincoln Lawyer is a big step in the right direction. Were this a perfect world, this adaptation would have been a two-part HBO event (one major event would have made a great ending for the first installment), albeit with the same cast. But this isn’t a perfect world, and this isn’t a perfect movie, but it’s a damned entertaining one.

THE VIDEO

The 2.35:1/1080p transfer--encoded with AVC--comes very, very close to perfectly replicating the slightly hot, slightly oversaturated look Furman and cinematographer Lukas Ettlin intended. The movie was shot digitally, but nothing about the presentation here betrays this; this is a consistently film-like transfer--smooth, clear, and detailed. Exteriors are bathed in bright sunlight, which gives everything a slightly orange push but in no way compromises the image.

Interiors realistically reflect either their respective artificial-lighting schemes or the look of intruding sunlight. Black levels are spot-on, with no murkiness or crush. Colors are often just this side of bold, although a few flashbacks have a desaturated, cold look. The only flaw here is some aliasing and moiré, which is visible during the opening credits and in clothing patterns, car grills, and hard vertical surfaces.

THE AUDIO

As they so often do with their new titles, Lionsgate has outfitted this disc with a DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 track. The sound design here is by no means bombastic or busy, by the audio is thick with atmosphere. Every location, from the interior of Haller’s Lincoln to the interiors of the courthouse, exhibits an exactingly perfect sonic character.

An early sequence has McConaughey walking through a courthouse, stopping outside the entrance, then entering his car, carrying on a conversation at every juncture; the atmosphere smoothly changes at each point, as does the aural color of the dialogue, which exhibits a realistic quality for each location. Music and ambient sounds also help fill out the soundfield; the low end adds a great deal of punch to the former (the score was composed by Cliff Martinez, and it features his usual driving rhythms).

No other audio options are included; English, English SDH, and Spanish subtitles are available.

THE EXTRAS

All of the extras here are presented in high-def:

Making the Case: Creating The Lincoln Lawyer (14 minutes) is a pretty good making-of featurette, briefly covering the movie’s somewhat slow trip to the screen, casting, shooting, etc.

At Home on the Road (10 minutes) finds Connelly driving around L.A., pointing out some of his old haunts and discussing his influences.

One on One (5 minutes) is a somewhat awkwardly staged conversation between Connelly and McConaughey.

Four deleted scenes (4 minutes) offer a few character moments, many of them helping to flesh out the relationship between McConaughey and Tomei.  

A second disc contains a DVD copy of the movie. Also included is a code to download an iTunes digital copy (it’s compatible only with iTunes devices).

FINAL THOUGHTS

Skillfully handled, old-fashioned in a good way, and cast to perfection, The Lincoln Lawyer offers solid entertainment.