500 Films: #6 Lincoln Lawyer (Subtitled: Bad Posters Don't Always Equate a Bad Movie)
First, this movie was part of our usual Saturday night movie dates. I thought we were going to watch Limitless, the one with Bradley Cooper. I found out about the change the day of, wondering, "What?" because I've never heard of the movie before. Never saw the trailer. Saw the poster when we arrived in Greenbelt, which made me raise my eyebrows. "Why are we watching this? There's Hop on cinema 5 and Source Code on cinema 2 if Limitless wasn't available."
But really, my reaction was because of the poster. You know how I tend to prejudge movies by their trailers? I do that, too, on a lesser scale, but with their posters. (I'm a preconceived-notion-bitch. But I'm open-minded. Eventually. I guess that should be contradictory somehow.)
Which brings me to the second thing: That poster.
I googled that pic for this blog post and imagine my surprise. You see, the one that hung in the theater advertising the movie, well, it looked somewhat like that but with a little addons on the side. Specifically, a cartoon-filtered shot of a girl with her mouth open and drops of cartoonish blood around her. There was still Matthew McConaughey sitting on top of his Lincoln. But there was that, too. It looked really cheap, and like really bad photoshopping.
Which is why we (yes, even Paul) blanched at our movie choice when we saw the poster.
Now, if they had stuck with the poster above, we wouldn't have raised our eyebrows so much.
The movie itself was actually decent.
It follows Mickey Haller, a defense lawyer who usually does his business in a Lincoln. His usual clients are common criminals and drug dealers--one of them is a gang of Harley bike riders--until he is personally requested to handle the case of rich boy Louis Roulet. Roulet, played by Ryan Phillippe, is accused of assaulting a prostitute and pleads innocence. This reminds Haller of one of his past cases where his client also swore he didn't do it. He eventually realized that the two had more similarities than he thought.
Here's the wiki if you want to be really spoiled. It's based on a book by Michael Connelly. I initially thought I'd be bored. Crime dramas aren't my thing--I label them under "guy movies". Wait, I watch CSI. Let me rephrase: Crime dramas primarily involving lawyers and courtrooms are not my thing. Plus, Matthew McConaughey? Not a big fan. Ordinarily, this wouldn't be my first choice for movie (see above), but I've watched a lot during Saturday night that fall under that category and find myself pleasantly surprised.
I'm not good at reviews, so I'll just say, Lincoln Lawyer wasn't so bad. Matthew McConaughey was good. Typical Matthew McConaughey, but I'm glad he was able to get this somewhat serious lead character. As for film plot, though there weren't car chases and bombs going off, the questions were enough to keep my brain occupied and my eyes open. How is he going to fix this? What did his friend find out? How is he going to defend this guy and get him to admit guilt at the same time? At the end when we're privy to his plans, there's this sense of... satisfaction. Not the heart and fist-pumping, "HELL YEAH!" satisfaction you get when Die Hard's Bruce Willis socks it to the bad guy, but a slow, cool realization of justice. Like a small, cocky smirk instead of a full blown arrogrant grin. It's the difference when you win with brains instead of brawn.
Which is why I think the poster above is already pretty apt. And why I wonder they felt the need to add that horrendous image of the woman with the blood spatter in the local version.
Sorry, can't get over that poster. I'll see if I can go back and take a picture of it to show here. It really was weird.
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