The photographer was apparently drinking from a bad batch of wood alcohol, but aside from that unfortunate incident, the Lincoln Lawyer is a rollicking good story. It's gripping, almost always satisfying in its turns, and in the end I was heartily glad I had watched it.
Now are you ready for my rant? This is directed toward the cinematographer, Lukas Ettlin (whose last responsibility was Battle: Los Angeles, which speaks volumes). YOU DON'T COMMUNICATE A CHARACTER'S INTERNAL AGITATION BY MOVING THE CAMERA AROUND IN AN AGITATED MANNER. You communicate it by focusing the camera on a good actor and letting him communicate his internal state.
McConaughey is lovely in this! So are Marisa Tomei as the ex-wife, William H Macy as the sidekick, and every other damn actor in the cast. These are well-paid professionals who are very good at what they do. There is absolutely no reason for the DP (and, ultimately, director Brad Furman, at whose door this botched vision lies sprawled, naked, and oozing pus) to mistrust this cast so much he feels he has to do their job for them. He's showing off, that's all, and it obstructs the telling of the tale. Not fatally, because the story and the script and the actors are sufficiently compelling to overcome it.
It's not that this guy is addicted to the shaky cam. He uses stillness, too, generally from odd angles, with maybe the camera set just closer to a witness on the stand than what we're used to, and set at just a slightly lower angle, emphasizing an oddness. That's alright; it doesn't ruin things. Point is, though, that even when he's using stillness, you can hear him, smug behind the camera, thinking loudly, "And behold! I offer you stillness." To which you want to respond, "Get out of the goddamn way so I can watch the film!"
Do you remember that great, great scene in the Bad and the Beautiful when Lana Turner finally makes herself fully vulnerable to Kirk Douglas only to have her heart smashed in the most mortifyingly awful way? Then she flees to her car and starts to drive, and we watch her for the longest time, having her emotional breakdown while she's driving. Minnelli and his cameraman (the incomparable Robert Surtees) set up a fascinating shot: the camera dollies up to about where the passenger rear-view mirror would be, just barely looking up and back at Lana. Then, as her frenzy mounts, and as her driving becomes more dangerous, it rocks backward until we're watching her from just outside the backseat, then forward again, in smooth, surreptitious movement. It's unobtrusive, beautifully so, but nonetheless effective in communicating that something is terribly wrong and building to a tragedy. It heightens the emotional impact of Turner's scene without at all distracting from it.
And so, in conclusion, I say to this Ettlin fellow: watch some old movies. Learn from the masters. Stop showing off. And get out of my way when I'm trying to watch a damn movie.
That said, and my crankiness temporarily abated, watch the Lincoln Lawyer, regardless. It's got other things to offer. It's been a long time since I've seen a really satisfying courtroom drama. They used to do them rather well in the old days, and Furman seems to be referring back to the seventies, judging from his opening credits and the flat, metallic lighting he's chosen to illuminate his Los Angeles. There was only one plot-point that eluded me (how did Haller know that Corliss would have details about the previous murder? it's a small quibble, and no doubt will resolve itself on a second viewing) so I went back to the book for clarification. I didn't find it, but it did seem to me during my glance-through that this is one of those occasions on which the movie is more satisfying than the book. My impression of Connelly is that he's one of those authors, so prevalent today, who specialize in good stories without putting in the time to write them very well, and that's the perfect kind of author to adapt to the big screen.
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