Fletch's Film Review: The Lincoln Lawyer

Everyone loves a good lawyer movie. Criminal lawyers are the chess masters of the judicial system, only their rooks and pawns are peoples' lives and futures. They're plainly more intelligent than the rest of us, though with those smarts often comes a loss of scruples. The only thing we love more than a lawyer is a smarmy lawyer, and if he's a smarmy defense attorney who can reconcile the fact that he's constantly defending "scumbags" and/or "dirtbags," even better.

I wanted to get into the heads of these guys a bit more - what makes them tick, and more importnatly, what is it that brings about these metamorphases that they go through? So, in place of a traditional review, I decided to gather them for a group interview. And trust me, with the busy schedules of these gentlemen, doing that was a bitch. Joining me today are, in no special order, Martin Vail (Primal Fear), Keven Lomax (The Devil's Advocate), Willy Beachum (Fracture), and of course, Mick Haller (The Lincoln Lawyer). Please keep in mind that I had the need to speak frankly about their respective cases, so if you don't want the verdicts spoiled for you, tread lightly.


Blog Cabins (BC): Gentleman, thank you so much for joining me. Please, fellas, whatever you do, don't object to these proceedings!

All: [groan]

Haller: Listen here, Fletch. We can't guarantee that we'll give you a good interview, or what's more likely, that you'll be a good interviewer, but I can promise you this: if you treat us with honesty and integrity, we'll move worlds for you, doing everything in our power to get you off.

BC: Well. Thanks for that, I think. Anyway...Mick, first question for you, since you're the latest addition to this group. Obviously, you have eschewed the traditional office in favor of being chauffeured (by a loyal, streetwise African-American fellow) around Los Angeles. Why is that?

Haller: It's fairly simple, actually. Despite my appearance - the Rolex, the $3,000 suits, all that - I consider myself a man of the people, and I can't think of a better way to mingle with them than in the staunch L.A. traffic. Believe it or not, it also frees up a ton of time, so I'm able to earn more money that way, separating my income further from the common man.

BC: Very smart thinking all around. However, I noticed something lacking in your back seat. Namely, one of those donut cushions or whatever they call them for people with hemorrhoids - I imagine that the "people" that you have most in common with are truckers and their dumpers.

Haller: [laughs nervously] Yeah...I'm gonna go ahead and plead the Fifth on that one.

BC: I thought you might. Willy, you also happen to be an inhabitant of the City of Angels. No driver for you?

Beachum: Shoot, I'm just a government employee - I can't afford nothin' like that.

BC: Interesting that you should say that, though, since I couldn't help but notice that it appears that you and Mr. Haller live in the same neighborhood, if not on the same street.

Beachum: Yeah, that little tidbit wasn't lost on me, either. Hey there, Mr. Lincoln Lawyer, did you really have to steal the entire setup of my movie?

Haller: How dare you compare yourself to me! For the record, people, I should not ever be associated with employees of the District Attorney's office. I mean, look at that guy Minton from my movie! He looks less like a lawyer and more like Leisure Suit Larry! And did you see that hair?

BC: He brings up a good point, Mr. Beachum. However [to The Lincoln Lawyer], it should be noted that Willy was all set to join a swanky private firm and join your side before his conscience got the better of him.

Haller: Alright, alright, alright...

BC: Now, Mr. Lomax, your situation appears at first to be the most complex - what with having Satan as a father and all that - but that little tidbit helps to explain where you ended up possibly the easiest.

Lomax: Definitely. Like Willy, I was a winner. Never lost a case. But when you learn that your Mom and wife were raped by Beelzebub and he's your father, you either go all-in and join the guy or recognize the error of your ways and learn to live a better life. There's really no middle ground.

BC: Indeed. Some harrowing stuff there. Though, it must be asked...how tempted were you to, uh, have carnal relations with your step-sister or whatever she was? I mean, your wife was already dead, and damn was she smoking hot...

Lomax: You forget that by choosing the path that I chose, I got to relive my life starting back at the beginning of my story, so my lovely wife was still alive.

BC: So true - good call.

Lomax: But really, I was like thisclose to doing it, incest or not. I would have had to be crazier than my loony wife to have not seriously considered it.

BC: While we're on the subject of women and superficiality, I have to ask, Martin...I look around at the leading ladies of your peers here, and I see women that look like Charlize Theron, Connie Nielsen, Marisa Tomei, Rosamund Pike, and....Laura Linney? I mean, no offense to Ms. Linney, but she's just a hotter version of Bonnie Hunt, which ain't exactly saying a whole hell of a lot. And she hated you!

Vail: Do you remember my former client, a mob informant named Joey Pinero? Big guy, good at pool, great taste in music, ended up dead?

BC: Sure.

Vail: Ask me something like that again and I'll have his brothers after you. Janet Venable is a class act and, I'll have you know, quite the racehorse in bed.

BC: Point taken. That reminds me, though, Mr. Haller -

Haller: Shoot.

BC: You seemed to have a large collection of bikers available to you at your beck and call, conveniently showing up whenever you needed them. Do these guy have nothing better to do than drive around looking for the one black Lincoln with you in the back seat? I mean, how do they find you anyway? There are like eight million cars on the road, aren't there? Why don't they just call? I'm so confused...

Haller: You know how I paid off that paparazzi guy to show up when I needed him to make me look good? Well, same line of thinking. I've got those guys on retainer. I page Eddie [the leader] - yeah, I know, who uses pagers any more these days? - with my location, and they come and find me. They're a plot device, but bigger than that, they make me look like a street tough in front of Earl. I'm constantly faced with the fear of him turning on me.

BC: Seriously? If that's the case, why don't you just drive yourself around all of the time?

Haller: A) Having him around also makes me look like a bit of a badass, and B) I don't know if you noticed this or not, but I'm a bit of an alcoholic...

BC: Indeed I did. In fact, all of you seem to be pretty heavy drinkers; if not all the time, at least when the chips are down.

Beachum: Alcohol is cool, and helps us get women. Well, except for Marty, obviously...

Vail: You snot-nose mother#$!@%er!! If you don't watch it, I will knock your ass into next week!

Beachum: [speaking in a Southern accent] Calm d-d-d-down, Marty. Will you t-t-t-tell Miss Venable I'm sorry?

Vail: [speechless]

BC: Alright, that's enough, guys. In fact, this is going a bit long, so how 'bout you guys [points to Lomax, Beechum, and Vail] close this out with your rating of The Lincoln Lawyer?

Lomax: F

Beechum: F

Vail: F

BC: Smarmy, egotistical bastards...

Fletch's Film Rating:

	Expectation: "Darn tootin."
	Reality: "You seem a decent fellow. I hate to kill you."

LAMBScore:

And then...

Fletch's Film Review: Hanna

Hanna grew up in a snowy, Finnish forest, separated from not only the conveniences of society, but from society altogether. She's like Hudson Hawk, released from jail and unaware of things like cellphones and PlayStations, only she's not a cat burglar and doesn't sing swinging big-band tunes. She's released from the wild with a mind full of encyclopedic knowledge yet zero first-hand application of said knowledge, a kid not in some mall candy store, but a worldwide store filled with candy...and bear traps and black holes and ammunition. She's entranced yet apprehensive; overwhelmed yet bewildered - an alien sent to Earth with loads of research behind her and a mission, but a twinkle in her eye and the curiosity of a child. In other words, she's Leeloo, minus the part where she's an element capable of saving and/or destroying worlds.

With all this in front of her, Hanna doesn't quite know how to handle herself at times. So many shiny new things, so many experiences to absorb. So many choices with so much at stake.

I might not have all that much on the line, but I feel a bit like Hanna, at least as it pertains to reviewing her film.

Sometimes, it's easy to put a finger on what you find appealing about a film. To apply a simple-to-understand label or turn-of-phrase that the whole world will comprehend with no further explanation necessary. A virtuoso performance by Daniel Day-Lewis! Brilliant pretzel logic. Creative non-linear structure. Whip-smart and/or snappy dialogue. Layers of meaning ripe for analysis.

Hanna has none of those things. Especially not Daniel Day-Lewis.

But it has that...zip...that spark...that certain je ne sais quois that I only wish I could put into words. It is a mirror of its central character - bad ass, brilliant, beautiful, naive, and capable of speaking in any number of languages. I don't know if it's the ethereal/industrial Chemical Brother score or the coherent, blunt action or the bohemian multiculturalism encapsulated by the family of Brits that Hanna meets on her travels or the dazzling visual after visual that's flung at the audience, but I'm become smitten with Hanna.

Director Joe Wright has made a film that's ostensibly about nothing - it's a straight-up revenge plot with sci-fi elements and an overall Bourne/espionage cool (every spy film that is released over the next 10 years that jumps around European cities must be compared to the Bourne films, in case you didn't know). Hanna tells us nothing about ourselves, and Hanna learns nothing meaningful about herself; sure, she learns of the circumstances that resulted in her living in a Finnish forest for the bulk of her childhood, but neither she nor any of the other characters really grow as a result of the events that take place in the film.

But, to borrow from the great poet Steven Tyler, life's a journey, not a destination, and you just can't tell just what tomorrow brings. Every second Hanna spends outside of her habitat is a new experience - one that's met with whimsy and magic and danger, and Wright brings that feeling to life palpably.

Fletch's Film Rating:

	Expectation: "Darn tootin."
	Reality: "It's in the hole!"

LAMBScore:

And then...

Fletch's Film Review Paul

Simon Pegg & Nick Frost: Um, hi. Welcome to The Pegg & Frost Show. We're...uh...Simon and Nick...and, our guest tonight is...one of the...greatest directors.. uh, film directors. We guess, film makers, ever. [ Simon and Nick smack themselves in the head ] GOD! That sounds stupid! God, we're such idiots! We never know how to start these things!

Steven Spielberg: You're doing great, guys.

Simon Pegg & Nick Frost: [ hopeful ] Really? No, we're not. [ hyperventilating ] Anyway...we guess...we didn't have, have to say, who you were, because...man, we mean...everyone knows who you are. Mmm...you're Steven Spielberg.

Steven Spielberg: Well, it's great to be here.

Simon Pegg & Nick Frost: [ uncomfortable ] You...you...you remember that time when you made Close Encounters of the Third Kind?

Steven Spielberg: Yeah, sure.

Simon Pegg & Nick Frost: That was awesome!

Steven Spielberg: Yeah, it was.

Simon Pegg & Nick Frost: O-kay.. Oh! You...you remember when you made that movie about the little alien guy...and...uh...how he ate M & Ms and he could heal stuff with his finger and everything?

Steven Spielberg: Well, actually, guys, it was Reese's Pieces. We tried to get M & Ms in the movie, but the parent company, Mars, Inc. said no so we went with Hershey and Reese's. But yeah, E.T. was a fun movie to make that really let me re-live the imagination of my childhood.

Simon Pegg & Nick Frost: Oh my god! We're such morons! We totally should have known that! We've seen that movie like a thousand times! Well...uh...really, we've seen, like, all of your movies a thousand times...well...except for Hook, that sucked. Oh wait!! No, that's not what we meant!

Steven Spielberg: It's alright, fellas. I understand. You're big fans. Everyone has their favorites.

Fletch's Film Rating:

	Expectation: "Darn tootin."
	Reality: "You seem a decent fellow. I hate to kill you."

LAMBScore:

And then...

Fletch's Film Review: Drive Angry

There's a school of thought that goes something like this: "Dude, you can't nitpick Drive Angry! You ought to know what you're getting in to when to sit down to watch it!" Basically, that there are films that are so bad that to delve into and analyze them is some sort of exercise reserved for the type of anal-retentive douchebags who have nothing better to do with their time than to point out typos in peoples' Twitter updates.

No. I don't think so. Sounds a whole hell of a lot like circular logic to me: I'll consciously make a movie that's so shitty that for you to criticize it makes you the idiot. How convenient.

Drive Angry makes the films of Michael Bay look like The King's Speech: polished character studies. If you're looking for 3D breasts and muscle cars traveling down a highway at 55 miles per hour (but meant to be much faster, of course), then I suppose you could do worse with your film dollars. But if you're looking for any semblance of narrative, characters thicker than the Grim Reaper's scythe or anything resembling conflict or drama, run like hell.

Now, you could argue that I'm an idiot for expecting anything better than shit out of a Nic Cage movie, and you'd likely be right. But, as is no secret these days, Cage is more than capable of entertaining in ways that go beyond being a respected actor; as he's shown time and again, his over-the-top antics can more than suffice in raising the enjoyment of even the worst material. No such luck here. Brendan Fraser really lost out on a great nemesis in Cage - as he demonstrates in Drive Angry, Nic would make for a compelling mummy. He walks stiltedly, mumbles unintelligibly and is already, well, dead. Slap some Ace bandages on the guy and he'd be a dead ringer for Arnold Vosloo. Then again, that might be a slap in the face to Vosloo - he actually showed signs of life in the role. Cage has one 'emotion' in Drive Angry: morose.

Thank God, then, that William Fichtner was added to the cast as The Accountant. Though the purpose of his character, like that of the film, turns out to be pretty pointless, he brings much-needed verve and energy to the flick any time he turns up onscreen. Would that I could say the same thing for David Morse, who always brings a touch of class to the table, but his role is so insignificant, it very well could have been played by "random 55-year old guy on the street" - much like Fichtner himself in The Dark Knight, you have to wonder why they bother to get solid character actors only to use them such a limited amount of time.

But I guess Drive Angry has bigger problems on its hands and was too busy hammering out the logistics of having scrap metal fly at the screen (in 3-D!) to worry about such trivial matters.

Fletch's Film Rating:

	Expectation: "Darn tootin." (Largely due to some overhyping from people that won't be named. It was maybe a "Decent Fellow" prior to that.)
	Reality: "Whatever." (It only misses a "Painful" rating thanks to Fichtner.)

LAMBScore:

And then...

Seriously Overdue Movie Reviews - 2010 Catch-up, Part III

Winter's Bone
Chilling meth-flavored noir. Expertly filmed and acted; feels so real it'll scare you away from the hills of Arkansas (because you know you wanted to go there real bad beforehand). Jennifer Lawrence will stow away her beauty in a duffel bag and John Hawkes will bring memories of Dennis Hopper to mind.

Fletch's Film Rating:

	Expectation: "It's in the hole!"
	Reality: "It's in the hole!"

LAMBScore:

Restrepo
Doesn't so much straddle the political line as ignores politics altogether, being one of those documentaries that, you know, merely documents its subjects and lets them do the talking rather than talking for/over them. All the same, it's deconstruction of what the US is doing in
Afghanistan will still boil your blood, regardless of your political affiliation. The soldiers' lives and the taxpayers' money might be getting wasted, but neither your time nor money will be watching this.

Fletch's Film Rating:

	Expectation: "Darn tootin."
	Reality: "Darn tootin."

LAMBScore:

The American
It's not an insult to the film, but it's greatest asset is the juxtaposition between its title - and the inherent de- and connotations that come from being labeled "American" - and the telling of this simple story, which couldn't be much further from being American unless it were in Italian. Clooney attempts to turn down his charisma merely by not smiling, and it works save for the fact that it looks like doing so literally pains him. Shot by a photographer, it's the most beautiful story about a hit man I can recall seeing, with pleasures of the eye in many forms abound.

Fletch's Film Rating:

	Expectation: "Darn tootin."
	Reality: "It's in the hole!"

LAMBScore:

Let Me In
No, it's not the abomination we feared. And no, for the last time, it's not better than the original, and I'll thank you for ceasing to spread that lie.

Fletch's Film Rating:

	Expectation: "You seem a decent fellow. I hate to kill you."
	Reality: "Darn tootin."

LAMBScore:

Buried
A better experiment than a film. It's interesting to watch the elements of the story continue to throw obstacles at Ryan Reynolds for him to sneak his way out of, but by the time the end rolls around, you can't escape the fact that it's more gimmick than anything else, despite having the advantage of unpredictability (kind of) over its thematic sibling from 2011, 127 Hours.

Fletch's Film Rating:

	Expectation: "You seem a decent fellow. I hate to kill you."
	Reality: "You seem a decent fellow. I hate to kill you."

LAMBScore:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I
I know that their are plenty of people out there (for example, Nick) who read the books (like Nick) and think that these last two films have been amongst the best of the series (like Nick). Well, I can't help but wonder how many people are out there like me (like me) who didn't read the books (like me) and feel as though this series has been more or less running in place since the end of Order of the Phoenix (like me).

Bring on the finale.

Fletch's Film Rating:

	Expectation: "It's in the hole!"
	Reality: "You seem a decent fellow. I hate to kill you."

LAMBScore:

The Town
I imagine the Heat comparisons wouldn't come flying so frequently had the word "heat" not been used 3,872 times during the course of The Town. No matter; there are few worse films to be compared to. The Town is neither the Best Picture contender that it almost was nor a mere knockoff, though - it's tight filmmaking with a number of intense action scenes and more than a couple memorable characters (Pete Postlethwaite would and should have nabbed a Best Supporting Actor nom had his character had a bit more depth; still, his villain was amongst the best in recent years). On the not-so-bright side, everything plays out according to Hoyle, and Jon Hamm is given a non-character to work with. As usual, Rebecca Hall is terrific and is likely the forgotten X factor to yet another film.

Fletch's Film Rating:

	Expectation: "Darn tootin."
	Reality: "It's in the hole!"

LAMBScore:

TRON: Legacy
Will history repeat itself? Will the legacy of Legacy be that it, too, is destined to find a larger audience on video (which is a weird as hell question to ask about a movie that's made nearly half a billion worldwide)?

It would seem so, or at least it would seem as though that's where it will be appreciated a bit more. To be sure, TRON: Legacy has issues in spades: Garrett Hedlund could use a few more charisma points, the deageifying of Bridges can't quite cross the digital uncanny valley, Michael Sheen's character is just a shade bit too much, etc. But it's story, while of the stock drop-and-rescue variety, is still compelling, and Bridges is captivating in all forms, however creepy and/or Dude-like they may be. Oh, and the soundtrack kicks ass.

Fletch's Film Rating:

	Expectation: "It's in the hole!"
	Reality: "Darn tootin."

LAMBScore:

127 Hours
Danny Boyle on cruise control - and I mean that as a compliment, since Boyle has been traveling at around 80 mph over the last few years. I was shocked and disappointed that he didn't earn a Best Director nod.

That said, is it possible for a director to constantly dash from one genre to another and yet consistently make the same film? Dare I say, as much as I enjoyed 127 Hours, Boyle's trademark may just be a bit too strong these days - varied as they may be, the effervescent energy he brings is always there like a brand on a cow, so much that it's become a shade too familiar. I'm really trying not to complain about a guy that makes quality film after quality film, but I wouldn't complain if he were to take a Red State-like left turn every now and then tonally.

Oh, and I know he got a nom, but somehow I still don't think James Franco got his due. He probably wasn't the first person that people thought of for a movie in which the lead would be the sole character on screen for 85% of it, but the guy wailed on this movie, spanning an impressive array of emotions and never once leaving the audience bored, even though we were all sitting there for 80 minutes waiting for a certain scene to finally happen.

Fletch's Film Rating:

	Expectation: "It's in the hole!"
	Reality: "It's in the hole!"

LAMBScore:

And then...