Movie Review: The Lincoln Lawyer

This weekend I saw The Lincoln Lawyer, but I'm still wondering if it was a fictional film adapted from the pages of a bestselling Michael Connelly novel or a documentary culled from paparazzi footage of its stars Matthew McConaughey, Ryan Phillipe, William H. Macy, Josh Lucas, Marisa Tomei, and John Leguizamo. If the credits don't lie, then:

McConaughey plays Mick Haller, a sweet-talking, morally suspicious defense attorney with pores only slightly smaller than the black Lincoln Towncar he parades around Los Angeles in chauffered by Laurence Mason. (Word of advice to McConaughey: you're too young for the direct path my mind took to the Driving Miss Daisy jokes, so stay out of the sun, Tandy.) The opening scenes show us Haller is street smart (cue shady lawyer talk), street rich (cue envelopes of cash), and street sweet (cue big brother / coke whore scene), while setting us up to wonder whether he'll give "hero" instead of "antihero" when it really effing matters. In a word, he's Hollywood's idea of a lawyer. In another word, he's Matthew McConaughey.

Ryan Phillipe plays Ryan Phillipe Louis Roulet, the kind of over-processed meat you'd expect to find crying for mommy in an overnight L.A. jail cell, pleading innocent about as convincingly as she can plead straight. Phillipe doesn't do much else in the film besides reenact some wife-beating scenes from his Mr. Witherspoon days, tap his Prada shoes next to McConaughey's urinal, and bemoan everything he finds "too short." I wonder if Phillipe knows the meaning of double entendre or if this film was director Brad Furman's way of getting back at him for all those teethy BJ's.

Speaking of which, William H. Macy dies in this film. SPOILER ALERT! There's all this hullabaloo about whodunit but I think he's wanted a way out of Felicity Huffman's boudoir ever since she lost the Best Actress Oscar to...none other than Reese Witherspoon. Conspiracy? Yes.

Josh Lucas really played with the audience's mind, since until this film everyone thought he was Matthew McConaughey. Someone deserves a Best Casting Oscar (doesn't exist) for pitting him opposite Tandy as Haller's opposing cancel. If The Lincoln Lawyer 2 doesn't star him as the lead I'll re-watch Sweet Home Alabama. Witherspoon again! It's as if she's the female specter haunting this sausage fest. Oh wait, no, that's...

Marisa Tomei, who sort of plays McConaughey's ex-wife and current love interest, though she hardly fills a full minute of screen time all told. That Best Supporting Actress Oscar did about as much for your career, Marisa, as it did for Mira Sorvino's.

John Leguizamo, Bryan Cranston, Michael Pena, Rose's Ice Queen Mother from Titanic, and dudes Ryan Phillipe has boned finish out the dramatis personae of The Lincoln Lawyer, which -- did I forget to mention? -- I kind of liked. The fact that it might easily have been broadcast as the pilot for a new Law & Order spin-off prevents me from calling it campy per se, but there's something about its manipulation of star power, storytelling and stealthily laid moments of anticlimax that belongs someplace in the arena of early Tarantino. I could be overreaching, but elsewhere I have argued that the "Tabloid Factor" -- my term for the network of intertextual associations related to any actor’s publicized biography -- is an increasingly well-used special effect in films featuring so-called "A-list" Hollywood stars. Perhaps whomever Brad Furman chooses for his next film will give us a clue as to how far he's willing to drive past signs of early promise.