On paper The Lincoln Lawyer seems like a great film noir in the grandest Hollywood sense, but it is executed so poorly it just comes off as a really terrible film.
Mick Haller is the eponymous advocate, who gets his name because he rides around Los Angeles in a Lincoln Town Car (seriously - that's all the name means). It seems he has an office (at least he has an assistant), but he never spends time there. Instead he rides around town going from one court house to another and from one client to another. He has a driver, apparently because his license was suspended at some point in the past, but he has his license back now and still uses the driver mostly - except for the middle act when the guy is mysteriously not around. Whatever.
He's sent to meet with a rich-boy client, Louis Roulet (Ryan Phillippe), who is being charged with assaulting a girl who turns out to be a prostitute. Roulet says he didn't do it, and his story is very convincing, however when Mick gets to digging - or gets his investigator, Frank (William H. Macy), to dig - they find that he's not the boy scout he seems to be. Mick's ex-wife, Maggie (Marisa Tomei) is a district attorney (of course) and they get into fights about their daughter, have sex now and again and share confidential information with one another. That's just what exes do, dontcha know.
I really appreciate how much of an ode to Hollywood noir this really is, with silly, random gunfights, views of obscure parts of Los Angeles and rich boys getting into trouble for their bad habits that involve unseemly elements of town, but the script here (written by John Romano, based on a book by Michael Connelly), aside from the basic plot points is really terrible. The dialogue sounds like it was written for a teenybopper soap opera and the story is so inert, it's no surprise when twists come or when characters flip.
There's absolutely no style to be found at all, as most of it takes place in daylight (that's an interesting update of noir if there's no way to get interesting shadows and lighting that gave the genre its name) and in a shity Town Car from the 1980s. Oh yeah - the stupid car that inspired the title is a late-model Town Car - because somehow Mick wouldn't care to buy a new car or something. Why not call it the Mercedes Lawyer or the Land Rover Lawyer? Is the American auto industry in such shape that this guy's heap would be its salvation?
Most of the acting here is terrible, but the actors aren't really working with any good lines. It seems much more like a high school drama club performance of a noir than any real movie with professional players. It's really badly directed (by Brad Furman). I guess this film serves the purpose of how to make a bad film noir with only bad choices. Film students can dissect each scene looking at what Furman does and lean how to do the opposite. That would probably make a pretty good movie!
Stars: 1 of 4
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