Reinventing books in movie format seldom works…at least as well as I expect. I saw “The Lincoln Lawyer” yesterday and was sorely disappointed. What’s great about Michael Connelly’s pulp fiction (and I use that term in a complimentary sense) is the depth of seediness he captures about L.A. None of that’s in the movie…yes they do stay to the surface streets and you see some of the dated, dirty, and unglamorous city, but the city is suppose to be a main character, not just a backdrop.
Matthew McConaughey is just too pretty to be a seedy lawyer. I bought him in “A Time To Kill”…but his character there was a preppy pretty boy so it worked. Also…Marisa Tomei…come on. She couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag. William Macy was way too earnest as the investigator, to the point I didn’t believe his character at all. The best acting in the movie has to go to the Lincoln driver, Laurence Mason. He was real, funny, and dead-on.
I won’t even go there with Ryan Phillippe, a good actor but wasted in his role as the rich but depraved momma’s boy. Same goes for John Leguizamo and Josh Lucas…wasted. I couldn’t place the tough Hell’s Angels type guy in the movie. I knew he was probably a country singer and sure enough…Trace Adkins; nothing to remember there.
Where I think the movie really failed was (1) in the script (did not capture the grittiness (in scene and dialogue) of the book), (2) the pacing (in parts overdone and in others, void), (3) direction…was there any, and (4) the acting…over the top at times, flat at others, and throughout did not capture the proper emotion for each of the scenes.
All in all a disappointing viewing…but on the flip side, Matthew sure is hot - still.
No comments:
Post a Comment