Released a mere two years after Alien, it was pretty clear that the 1981 Peter Hyams directed and Sean Connery starring movie Outland took as much from that film’s sci-fi visuals as it did, story-wise, from the classic 1952 western High Noon.
Like Alien, the look of the Jupiter mining station is generally grim and gritty, with dark, well worn equipment and characters who look like they belong in a mining town (as opposed to Alien, where the characters appeared for all intents and purposes like interstellar truckers). The plot of the film is essentially identical to High Noon: Sheriff of the town/colony takes a stand, killers come in on the next shuttle/train, which is due at a very specific hour. During the wait, the Sheriff tries to enlist the aid of others in fighting the killers, is rebuffed.
The clock ticks down, slowly, surely…
Yes, Outland is High Noon in space, and given my tolerance for “homages”, you would think that would instantly turn me off from this film. There is also the secondary issue of logic, which the film sometimes lacks, particularly regarding the whole idea of gun play. As the movie is set in an environmentally sealed outer space colony, you would figure guns would be, if not banned outright, kept under very, very tight control. After all, one stray bullet could prove catastrophic to everyone should it rupture a wall or damage some sensitive equipment. Yet the guns are fairly plentiful, and the shootouts are on the level of a western.
Now that I’ve described the bad, let me state the good: Outland is a solid piece of entertainment. Sean Connery is good in the heroic role, the story moves well, and the bad guys are fearsome.
However, this is one of those films that seemingly is forgotten today. The DVD was released some time ago and the reviews of it were quite brutal (I believe I have it somewhere in my collection but never watched it).
The reason I mention the film at all is because, lo and behold, it is about to be released on Blu Ray this coming Tuesday and I found this review that was quite positive regarding the overall transfer:
Not much information on the extras (if any) are provided, thought this review does note that we get director commentaries. Anyway, I’m intrigued.
In conclusion, if you’re in the mood for some grim and gritty sci-fi action that has the look of Alien and the plot of High Noon, you should check out Outland when it arrives on Blu Ray this week.
Sad to realize this film would be the second last one Mr. Kubrick would direct before his death in 1999. Full Metal Jacket was followed a little over a decade later, and just before Mr. Kubrick passed away, with the Eyes Wide Shut, a film that to this day I don’t like. At all. And that’s saying something as I’m a HUGE fan of Mr. Kubrick’s work.
As for Full Metal Jacket, I absolutely loved the first half of the film, which featured boot camp. The second half of the film, wherein the recruits go to Vietnam, wasn’t quite as good, at least in my opinion. I’ve always felt that despite some flaws (most notably a very muddled ending), the Francis Ford Coppola directed Apocalypse Now remains my favorite Vietnam War film and could well be one of the best films about war ever.
Having said that, I always felt that Apocalypse Now was a very Kubrick-like film, though that remains a personal opinion and does not at all detract from what Mr. Coppola created.
Has there been a movie that received as much bad press as 2012’s John Carter?
Based on the 1912 novel A Princess of Mars by author Edgar Rice Burroughs (his most famous creation, of course, is Tarzan), the movie was released earlier this year and proved a massive flop. It cost in the neighborhood of $250 million to make (not including marketing, which I’ll return to in a moment) and its worldwide take was a decent, but far from good considering the costs, $179 million. The losses from this Disney production’s release resulted in the resignation of a chairman within the company.
The fact is that the film appeared doomed almost from the beginning. Word leaked early on in the production that there were problems. There was whispers of dissatisfaction from the studio regarding the work in progress. There was also word of reshoots and rumors that Andrew Stanton, the director of the film who was best known for his computer animated Pixar work, was in over his head with actual human actors.
When the film neared actual release, I had the feeling potential audiences already were poisoned against the movie. These opinions certainly weren’t helped by the film’s very bland title (the studios appeared worried mentioning “Mars” in the title would turn off the already turned off audiences) and a truly inept advertising campaign. In fact, the later may well have been the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.
Yet as the film was released and proved a financial calamity for Disney, I couldn’t help but notice that despite the massive disinterest shown by audiences, the reviews of the film weren’t all that…awful. True, the film polled at a mediocre 52% among critics at Rottentomatoes.com, but it held a higher 64% among the audiences that bothered to see the film.
So I wondered: Was the film unfairly condemned? Did it deserve a better fate? Were potential audiences wrong in turning their backs?
I was curious to find out. I missed the film in theaters but when it arrived on home video, I gave it a look. So, what did I see? In brief, a good, though not great adventure film.
To begin, John Carter is gorgeous to look at. The visuals are quite impressive and I felt the filmmakers most certainly captured the “look” of the Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novels. The computer generated effects are, for the most part, seamless. The alien creatures look quite real, and Taylor Kitsch looks good as John Carter and Lynn Collins looks equally good as Dejah Thoris, the Princess of Mars.
Unfortunately, that the best thing I can say about them. As handsome as the two actors are in the title roles, they really lack chemistry. I always felt that one of the things that made the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs so successful, apart from the obvious pulp adventures presented, was the sexuality. Both Tarzan and the Mars series featured brawny, swashbucking men’s men and incredibly beautiful women in peril. As readers we longed for Tarzan to get Jane. In the Mars series, we longed for John Carter to marry Dejah Thoris.
But in this film, the sexuality is toned waaaay down. As I said before, part of the problem is that the actors lack chemistry. The other part, I suspect, is that the producers/director really clamped down on the sexuality. For most of the movie John Carter and Dejah Thoris show little interest in each other, it seemed, and certainly nowhere near the sexual tension present between Tarzan and Jane in films from the 1930’s.
There is also so much going on that I couldn’t help but wonder just how much was cut. The character of Sola, for example, accompanies Carter and Thoris for the middle section of the film on but is relegated to being such a minor character with so few lines of worth that one wonders why they even bothered having her in the film at all. The movie features three main “villains”, but once again very little is shown of them and when two meet their fate, one feels little satisfaction that the villain(s) got what was coming to them.
I suspect that John Carter was a victim of a combination of factors, from studio interference to director inexperience to an underdeveloped script. The actors, I felt, did what they could and weren’t bad in their roles, though I suppose an argument could be made that the two leads failed to register enough chemistry between them.
And yet, having said all that, the film is not the disaster audiences suspected it would be. It is a pleasant enough time killer with some good humor and some impressive set pieces but, and its a very BIG “but”, given the film’s costs, it could and should have been so much more. On a four star scale, I’d give John Carter 2 1/2 stars.
This should be my last post regarding the movie Prometheus. Yesterday, I posted a video that presented a pretty crushing take down of all the things that didn’t make sense/weren’t clearly explained/plot holes in the movie Prometheus.
Today, a link to a very well thought out examination by Cavalorn of much of the mythological (and other) symbolism found in the movie:
Curiously, while the author points out the many mythological elements, he misses what I thought was one of the more obvious ones, that of the myriad ways a parent/child interacts, whether good (trying to follow in their steps, make them proud) to bad (wanting them “out of the way/dead” so they can take over).
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Prometheus is a tough film to discard off-hand. It fails on many levels, perhaps the greatest of which is that there are so many plot holes/unanswered questions and idiotic characterizations (and idiotic character actions) that it is not possible for me to recommend the movie to anyone.
But having said that, clearly there was considerable thought put into the film and, while it may fail overall as entertainment, Prometheus does present the viewer with many interesting symbols/mythological elements that provide plenty of food for thought…for those interested.
Red Letter Media, perhaps best known for their epic evisceration of the Star Wars prequels, here offers a nice, tight, compendium of almost all the very frustratingly unanswered questions present in the movie Prometheus:
I have to give the folks above credit, they pretty much hit every question left unanswered in the movie in these four minutes, including a few things I certainly didn’t even think about but, in retrospect, probably should have.
As I said before, it is difficult to completely discard Prometheus (at least for me…many others have!). I think the film does make a genuine attempt to do something “different” and I admire the whole “parent/child” dynamic they were exploring in all its myriad ways. Having said that, all these silly unresolved issues really take away from the overall enjoyment one might have of the film. Will there be a sequel that addresses some of this stuff? Director Ridley Scott is now 74 years old. Realistically, he’s only got a few more films in him and I wonder if he’ll ever get to do a sequel to this film…or leave it in other, perhaps less capable hands.
Of the films scheduled for release this summer, there were only a couple I really, really wanted to see in theaters. Of those, there was one I absolutely would not miss: Director Ridley Scott’s return to the Alien universe, Prometheus.
In spite of my excitement to see the film, I tried to keep my expectations low, for I knew that sometimes those things lead to a huge let down. In the end, I chose to see the film in as “good” a format as possible: In IMAX and 3D. I sat in the theater and, for the very last time, kept my hopes in check. The film played out…
…and I found myself incredibly disappointed.
A few days have passed since then, and I’ve taken some time to process my thoughts. I still feel this film is a major disappointment, and presents the viewer with too many inept moments and silly character actions, yet I nonetheless can’t help but admire what Mr. Scott and company tried to do, rather than succeeded in actually doing.
Prometheus, as the name should imply to anyone with even a casual knowledge of mythology, relates to the Titan Prometheus, who in the fables created man from clay and stole fire from the Gods. The main theme of the film relates to this as well as the parent/child relationship. On the surface and just below, this film is filled with references to how children and their parents interact…or don’t.
The protagonist of the movie, Noomi Rapace’s Elizabeth Shaw, is presented as a person that is, ironically, both outside and tied in deep with parent/child concerns. On the one hand, she’s an “orphan”, who as a young girl lost her father…yet has strong memories of him and hopes to emulate him. On the other hand, it is revealed that she is incapable of having children of her own, thus of becoming a parent herself.
The two other main characters to follow, Charlize Theron’s Meredith Vickers and Michael Fassbender’s David, have their own parent/child issues, but to go into details about that would involve considerable spoilers.
The symbolism present in the film, I have to admit, has kept me from writing Prometheus off completely, this despite the fact that the film is remarkably -surprisingly- sloppily made, with way too many story holes, paper thin characters, and general stupidity. Further, the film doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be, trying for a “Chariot of the Gods” type story for much of its run time before lurching into horror only in its final act.
I could spend way too much time going over things that didn’t make sense or were muddled in their presentation, but I’ll focus on one specific thing that bothered me more than anything else in the film…and I’ll try to be as spoiler free as possible:
Why exactly did David spike the drink?
There is never a clear explanation of this, though there are hints, particularly David’s talk with Vickers just before. But why was it done? What was the purpose?
Despite some intriguing symbolism, in the end I remain roughly where I was upon walking out of the film. I admire the attempt to create a “deep,” mythical story, but I simply cannot recommend Prometheus. I’ve heard there is a longer “cut” of the film that features at least 20 additional minutes of material not seen in the theatrical release. Perhaps when that version is released, those twenty minutes might explain the whole spiking the drink thing…though I doubt they’ll help make some of the movie’s other problems, including the cardboard side-characters and their fate, any more interesting.
A few days back, when reviewing Haywire, I noted the director of that film, Steven Soderbergh, was some kind of speed demon in the movie industry, releasing a tremendous amount of material since his first movie credits.
There is another movie director/producer speed demon out there, and this one’s output, at least given his fewer years in the industry, is nonetheless running neck and neck with Mr. Soderbergh’s: Robert Rodriguez. While Mr. Soderbergh’s films tend to be more “artistic”, there is little doubt Mr. Rodriguez’s focus is on more crowd pleasing action/adventure films.
In 2010, Mr. Rodriguez’s Toublemaker Studios released two films. In the past couple of days I finally got a chance to see both of them.
First up is Predators, a sequel to the popular alien hunter/killer films. The original 1987 Predator is considered among actor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s best films. The subsequent sequel and “Aliens vs.” versions were considered quite a come down. I read that when Mr. Rodriguez was first becoming a hot commodity in Hollywood, he was tasked with writing a sequel to the original Predator. He did, but the film was never made.
Until now.
Predators, like Haywire, winds up being a pretty terrific film…until you get to the end. Director Nimrod Antal keeps the level of tension going quite well, beginning the movie with a white knuckle sky dive sequence that immediately brought me into the film. As we quickly find, several unsavory people were kidnapped from whatever it was they were doing. When they awoke, the were in freefall and landed in a strange jungle. As they would soon find, they are no longer on Earth. They have been brought here by the Predator creatures as prey.
The movie stars Adrien Brody, on paper a seemingly unlikely choice for action star, as a silent but deadly mercenary who becomes the leader of this group of fellow kidnapped killers. He is intent on survival but is reluctant to care for anyone in this motley group.
As I mentioned before, this film is quite terrific in the early going. The action sequences are damn good and the interactions among the characters are reasonably strong. Unfortunately, by the time we reach a certain “scavenger” character (I’m trying not to be too spoilery here), the movie starts to lose its steam. Worse, the three Predator creatures our protagonists fight are gone for very long stretches of cinematic time. Two of them wind up being dispatched waaaaaay too easily, especially considering what it took to get rid of only ONE of them in the original film.
In the end, I would cautiously recommend the film to those interested in the whole Predator genre. This is a decent enough film that would have benefited from a stronger conclusion.
The trailer for the film, presented below, was the source of some controversy among movie goers. At the 2:03 second mark, note how Adrien Brody’s character is “targeted” by several Predator lasers, implying that an army of those deadly beings have targeted him. In the movie itself, there wound up being one laser targeting him. While I don’t subscribe to the notion that theatrical trailers should give away movie plots, this particular change in what was presented in the film is quite a cheat. Watching this trailer, you get a sense of a far bigger threat to our hero than was actually presented, and it does diminish that scene in the film.
Also released in 2010 was Robert Rodriguez’s “grindhouse” tribute Machete. Appropriately enough, this movie began life as one of the faux movie trailers presented during the intermission of the Grindhouse double feature. A cynical person might say those trailers, and particularly the Machete trailer, were better than either Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror or Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof, the actual films presented in Grindhouse.
I suppose I’m just that cynic, for while both actual films had their moments, to me the most memorable material was indeed in the faux trailers, and the one I found the most humorous of them all was Machete. When the actual film version was announced, I was therefore quite curious to see it. Thanks to home video, I finally did have the chance to do just that.
So, did Machete the movie live up to Machete the faux trailer?
Yes. And no.
The Machete trailer was filled with grindhouse-styled mayhem. There was a great mix of way-over-the-top violence, gratuitous nudity, and a tongue firmly stuck in cheek. The movie tries to stick with this formula while adhering -perhaps a little too closely- with all the scenes present in the original trailer (everything in that trailer winds up appearing in the movie, for better or worse).
What the movie adds are several famous actors, including the likes of Robert DeNiro (!), Michelle Rodriguez, Lindsay Lohan, Steven Segal, and Jessica Alba. There is a definite “wow” factor to seeing so many familiar faces in a movie that gleefully revels in this grindhouse atmosphere…
But what is lacking, in my opinion, is more overt humor.
Let’s face it: Machete borders (no pun intended) on the ridiculous. While we have plenty of bloody action and gratuitous nudity, we have a lot of tongue in cheek stuff but not nearly enough actual gags. In fact, the movie presented only two really, really funny jokes: The “Introducing Don Johnson” movie credit and the line delivered by Machete himself, stony faced Danny Trejo: “Machete don’t text.”
How I wish there were more examples to give!
Further, and most astonishingly, Robert DeNiro hardly registers as corrupt Senator McLaughlin. He is given too little to do and winds up reading his lines and hitting his marks without ever rising above the material. Steven Segal, as the movie’s big bad, is also curiously flat. His big confrontation with Machete at the end of the film is quite ludicrous, but not for the right reasons: We are told Mr. Segal is some expert swordsman, but during that last confrontation his level of swordplay is that of a kid playing ninja in a playground.
Having said all this, Machete is not without it’s bloody charms. To those who enjoy raunchy R-rated blood and guts, you will enjoy Machete for what it is. Others beware.
Director Steven Soderbergh is some kind of speed demon. Either that or he doesn’t sleep. On his IMDB page, he’s listed as having 34 Directorial Credits since his 1985 debut in video documentary (Doing the math, that translates to roughly 1.26 releases per year as director). And that doesn’t include the Production Credits (33), the Cinematography Credits (18), Editor Credits (12), etc. etc. Some are duplicate credits, yet on a whole, this man has had his hand in an incredible volume of works.
As I look over Mr. Soderbergh’s myriad credits and story genres, it appears his 2011 directed movie Haywire represents the first full foray into action/adventure territory. He’s worked in and around the genre before, perhaps most notably in the very successful caper/comedy Oceans 11, 12, etc. films, but, as I said before, this may well be the first time he’s fully hit at this particular genre.
When Haywire was originally released, I really wanted to see it, although for reasons that are unique to me. You see, I released this novel called Mechanic back in 2009 that features a protagonist that, to my mind’s eye, wound up looking exactly like Haywire’s protagonist Mallory Kane, as played by actress and mixed martial arts fighter Gina Carano, someone who up until the film’s release I had no knowledge about. She is the movie’s main draw and is present in almost every scene. This is certainly quite a challenge for a first time actress, especially when you are tasked to not only perform your own stunts (which she handled quite well), but also act with such seasoned veterans as Michael Douglas, Ewan McGregor, Michael Fassbender, Bill Paxton, and Antonio Banderas.
Looking at the film’s overall reviews on RottenTomatoes.com (you can read it here), the movie wound up scoring a very curious split. A whopping 80% of critics gave the film a “thumbs up” compared to a far more anemic 41% approval from audiences. Thus, it appears that Haywire was a critical darling but casual movie goers weren’t quite as impressed.
So what did I think?
To begin, Mr. Soderbergh and Ms. Carano provide a potent mix. If you come into the film looking for some bone crunching fight scenes, I can’t see how you walk away from the movie disappointed. But be aware that this film is most certainly an “old school” type action film. There are no flashy special effects. There are no epilepsy-inducing Michael Bay-like jump cuts. There are no super-heroics. The fights are presented for the most part in long, reasonably realistic takes. There is exactly one car chase, but it too is presented reasonably naturally, with no cars performing incredible leaps or crashes.
Which may explain why audiences which by now are accustomed to big scale action films along the lines of a Fast Five or The Avengers might not react so positively to a movie on a much smaller scale like Haywire. Frankly, I appreciate the effort, even though I think the film, in the end, was simply not as successful as I hoped it would be.
However, during its first hour or so, it most certainly was. I was instantly drawn into the movie’s story and the plight of Ms. Carano’s tough as nails Mallory. Ms. Carano’s performance, the lynchpin of the movie, was pretty damn good. She more than held her own against the seasoned actors she was up against and made for a compelling hero.
But after that first hour, the film simply lost steam. The plot, featuring undercover operative Mallory’s betrayal after a “job”, was pretty standard stuff, even though Mr. Soderbergh gave it as much pizzazz as he could. The film’s greatest sin was its lack of a compelling climax. An action film, in my mind, should build as it goes along. The final act, in particular, should be smashing. Not only did Haywire not have a “smashing” ending, it committed the even greater sin of concluding on a decidedly abrupt note that left me even more unsatisfied.
Ultimately, Haywire is about 2/3rd of a very, very good old school style action film. I just wish Mr. Soderbergh and the screenwriters could have fashioned a more fulfilling and satisfying climax and given us a film that ended with a bang rather than a whimper.
Another post from the past, this one originally appearing on March 16, 2011. It has been mildly edited for clarity…
Don’t exactly know how, but I managed to claw enough free time to see a trio of few films over the weekend. Was the time well spent or a complete waste of time?
First up was the 2009 horror film The Collector. When I first heard of this film, I was intrigued. It seems there are precious few “new” ideas when it comes to modern horror films featuring your standard Bogeyman-type villain. Pretty much everything was locked into place regarding this movie-screen killer in John Carpenter’s original Halloween and since then we’ve seen mild variations of this theme. Sure, some movies have featured better effects, more elaborate “kills” (to the point of being ridiculous) while others have added humor into the otherwise bloody proceedings. But the general blueprint remains roughly the same: A group of people (often movie versions of teens) are targeted by the insane killer and are offed one at a time before the killer is apparently taken out by the hero/heroine. But just before the credits roll, the audience wonders…is the fiend actually dead…or will we see him/her return in a sequel?
I’ve seen this story so many times, over and over again, that despite being a fan of horror films, I’m not really interested in re-visiting this particular sub-genre. However, when I heard about the plot of The Collector;, I took notice because it presented, finally, a pretty interesting new wrinkle to the familiar bogeyman routine.
Yes, in this movie, our killer is a sadistic and almost supernatural being. His “work” involves locking people in their homes and making their familiar surroundings a death trap while he goes after them one at a time. Boring stuff, really.
But then comes that wrinkle: A theif by the name of Arkin (played by the very taciturn Josh Stewart), is a decent enough man who is forced to steal to pay off a debt for his wife/girlfriend before some loan sharks do her harm. He targets a house in which he believes the residing family are gone for the weekend. Instead, he quickly finds that not only are they around, but they are currently being victimized by a demented fiend who has made the house an elaborate death trap. The wrinkle is that the thief’s presence is known neither to the family OR the killer and in short time, the thief/protagonist is forced to play a game of cat and mouse with the killer while trying to save the family from their doom.
As I put the film on, I truly wanted it to succeed. And for a good while, it does, even if almost from the very beginning the film veers into the truly ridiculous. You see, the number of traps our “Collector” has arranged in the victim family’s house are simply waaaay too much. If our killer had a few months to set up all those elaborate traps, it would make sense, but our protagonist is seen casing the house in the morning and breaking into it that same evening. There is simply no way killer manages to get all that work done in one day (How I wish real life contractors were that efficient!!)
Worse, the family members our protagonist eventually tries to save -at least two of them- die in virtually the same manner, running off screaming and getting the killer’s attention when by that point they should know much better.
But the film’s biggest failing is its downbeat (yet cliched) ending, wherein our bogey man does what all these other bogey men do: Rise from the grave (so to speak) and “triumph”. By that point, though, the film’s clever new wrinkle was long past being interesting, and the film lost me completely.
Having said that, I know that a sequel to this film is in the works, called The Collection. Despite the fact that I feel The Collector was ultimately a let down, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t intrigued with the idea of a sequel. Hope (or maybe stupidity on my part) springs eternal…
Next up is the 2005 straight to video release of the Jason Statham, Ryan Phillippe, and Wesley Snipes film Chaos. When I first heard of this film and the fact that it was not released theatrically, I figured at best it was mediocre and at worse pretty terrible. Particularly considering the three leads it had. In the end, Chaos falls more into the “best case” scenario for a direct to video release, maintaining a good level of interest until it fizzled out at the end.
Mr. Statham is Quentin Connors a suspended cop. After a bank robbery in the city goes bad and the people in the bank demand to speak to Connors, he is brought back in for the job. From there, a cat and mouse game between Connors, his new partner (and newbie) Shane Dekker (Ryan Phillippe) ensues. The bulk of the film is an attempt by Connors and Dekker to discover what exactly the thieves were after, and how their actions and interests tie in to Connors’ past.
There are some very clever twists and turns in the film, but ultimately, unfortunately, this is a movie that demanded at least one more turn at the very end…a turn that doesn’t come (without giving away too terribly much, I believe one of the characters should have gotten the upper hand in the end…and not the one that did). Despite that reservation I think this is a film worthy of your time if you have nothing better to do one lazy Saturday afternoon.
Finally, we have the 2011 Matthew McConaughey film The Lincoln Lawyer. Now, I’ve stated before my love of author Michael Connelly’s novels (excluding his biggest misfire, IMHO, 9 Dragons). While The Lincoln Lawyer was one of his most successful novels in terms of sales, I have to admit that, while it certainly wasn’t as outright terrible 9 Dragons, it nonetheless wasn’t, in my opinion, one of Mr. Connelly’s stronger novels (An aside: One of my all time favorites books he wrote, Blood Work, was also made into a film and starred Clint Eastwood. Unfortunately, the film would up being quite mediocre, mostly because of several unwarranted deviations in the film’s climax).
Because the novel was a success, Hollywood came calling and the movie was made. Would it be on the level of the film version of Blood Work? Thankfully, no.
Matthew McConaughey plays attorney Mick Haller, a rather slick, unscrupulous defense lawyer who, from all appearances, has been placed on this earth for the sole purpose of making as much personal gain as he can via his profession. He is provided a “hot tip” on a very wealthy young man who may have assaulted a prostitute and, seeing the possibility of making some big cash, visits the client in jail. The potential client, Louis Roulet (Ryan Phillippe, again!), swears his innocence, but Haller doesn’t seem to care. The temptation of a very big payoff is too great to ignore.
He takes on the case and his investigation of the circumstances of this assault begin. Very quickly, things turn out to not be quite what they seem. Usually, a novel trumps a movie, but here I think the movie trumps the book. Yes, the film follows all the main elements of the book while ditching a couple of aspects (Detective Harry Bosch, Mr. Connelly’s biggest literary creation, for example, is no where to be found in the movie, though he made an extended cameo appearance in the book). Apart from that, the elements that were trimmed from the book actually, I felt, strengthened the movie. And while Mr. McConaughey doesn’t seem to fit the description of the book’s version of Haller, who was described as somewhat overweight and not all that attractive, it proves irrelevant. Mr. McConaughey’s work here is damn good, which proves very helpful considering he is present in virtually every scene in the film. Thanks to his charisma and solid acting we are eventually able to root for a guy that, at first, we should be repulsed by.
Nonetheless, the film is not without some flaws. Marisa Tomei is given far too little to do in the film as Haller’s ex-wife (in the book, he has two ex-wives, but the second one isn’t identified as such in the film). Also, the pressure the police put on Haller when he comes under suspicion for some nefarious doings never becomes as pressing as it could have been.
Having said that, I would still recommend The Lincoln Lawyer to anyone looking for a decent -and twisty- diversion.
![Outland [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Dgh2a2IpL._SL500_AA300_.jpg)