thoughts on "The Lincoln Lawyer"

I liked this movie a lot, everyone. This was mainly because the casting was ridiculously perfect: Matthew McConaughey as Mick Haller, a charming but slightly skeezy lawyer with something of a drinking problem; Ryan Philippe as Louis Roulet, a smug, entitled young rich man who isn't telling his attorney everything; and Marisa Tomei as Maggie McPherson, Mick's ex-wife, a prosecutor who clearly still loves, likes, and is incredibly attracted to her ex-husband. She presumably divorced him because of his skeeviness (she makes a comment at one point that she just can't get behind the fact that, as a defense attorney, he's constantly helping the bad guys go free while she's trying to put them away) and his drinking; she's too good for him in a lot of ways, really, but you can tell that he knows that. You get the impression that the two of them are crazy about each other and don't really want to be with anyone else, yet they could just never quite make it work. I liked their relationship a lot, and both actors did a good job with it; I thought it was a fairly realistic, complex adult relationship between two people with a history that is never fully explained.

That's another thing I liked about this movie; they don't waste a lot of time explaining any of the characters' pasts or history with each other, just sort of let you pick it up as you go along. At the heart of this story is a mystery, and it is the type of story where I just sort of sit back and let the characters do their thing and not try to spend a lot of time figuring everything out, not because it doesn't make sense but because I feel like most of the characters are much smarter than I am. I used to feel the same way when I used to watch Veronica Mars; I haven't often felt the same way before or since then, but I'm usually pretty impressed with a movie or show when it makes me feel like that.

So, bottom line: intriguing story, great casting and performances. I know I'm going a lot less into the plot than usual, but it is one of those movies where new discoveries are constantly being made, and there are like two surprise twist endings before the movie actually stops; for this type of movie, I feel like it's more important to not give away the plot as much as I usually do. Just take my word for it that if you like legal thrillers, this is one of the better ones I've seen in awhile.

On a side note, during the previews I decided that it is highly likely that I will be seeing Soul Surfer, the movie about the surfer who lost her arm in a shark attack. It's got surfing. And Dennis Quaid. And Carrie Underwood. What more could you want, really?