Weekend Reading/ Viewing: The Lincoln Lawyer

The Lincoln Lawyer is the highly charged story of criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller and his battles within the Los Angeles court system.   While the movie has yet to appear on any 25-Greatest-Legal-Movies-Evah lists, I contend that LL could be a strong candidate for inclusion on future lists despite the dog-eared adage that “the book is always better than the movie.”

In the book, author Michael Connelly paints protagonist Mickey Haller as a free-wheeling, free-dealing criminal defense attorney who, rather than pay overhead for a fixed office space,  does business out of the back of his late-model Lincoln Town car.  His standard run-of-the-mill clients are petty thugs, drug dealers, and prostitutes.  The action heats up when Haller agrees to defend a rich young man from Beverly Hills charged with attempted murder and aggravated sexual assault and battery.

The son of legal legend Michael Haller, Mick is a creature born and bred to the L.A. Superior Court and former-police-beat-reporter-turned-novelist Connelly doesn’t disappoint readers, providing a vivid insider look at the City of Angels.  As his protoganist tears up Highway 5, oiling the wheels of the American criminal justice system, Connelly’s writing is reminiscent of Raymond Chandler which is unsurprising since he decided to become a mystery writer upon discovering Chandler’s works while studying at the University of Florida.

Trivia sidebar:  About 10 years after moving to the West Coast, Connelly literally followed in the footsteps of Chandler’s hard-boiled PI Philip Marlowe by renting the unit in High Tower Apartments where the famous character lived in The Long Goodbye.  Director Robert Altman also filmed portions of The Long Goodbye in the same location.

While the movie takes liberty with the written word, The Lincoln Lawyer succeeds as a film due to its ability to convey the book’s nuances within the hour and a half allotted by director Brad Furman.  The film excises a great deal of the material relevant to the intricacies of legal profession, but the star-studded cast, featuring Matthew McConaughey, Marisa Tomei, Ryan Phillippe, William H. Macy, and Michael Peña, meshes well, keeping the audience engaged in each character’s role as the script’s plotlines converge.  Their collective performance is offset by a slick soundtrack and terse dialogue that evokes the drama and action inherent to high-stakes cases in the courtroom.

The Law Library & Technology Center is proud to count both the print and film versions of The Lincoln Lawyer among its holdings.  The book is shelved at PS3553.O51165 L56 2005 in the Law and Popular Culture Collection (2nd Floor) while the DVD resides at PN1997.2 .L553656 2011 in the Media Collection.  The Sherman Library also offers additional formats of this title, such as audiorecordings on CD-ROM and Blu-Ray as well as the other five books in the Mickey Haller series.

You can also watch Michael Connelly and Matthew McConaughey talk about both works while on the set of The Lincoln Lawyer via the author’s official website.  So sit back, relax, and enjoy the show!