Let's talk the walk: when kick-starting a column called Talking Movies, let's begin with talk-heavy movies, i.e., legal dramas that talk the good talk. They are rich with the cut-and-thrust of argument and counter-argument, clever summations and shocking disclosures. It's the stuff that keeps me riveted to my seat despite annoying viewers chattering on mobiles in sub-zero theatres; even popcorn intake is reduced to a mechanical activity to cope with the onscreen tension. Good legal dramas are plot-driven and have urgency, like a limited overs cricket match; I know a verdict will be reached, but anxiously wonder if it will be the one I'm rooting for. Unsurprisingly, us popcorn-munchers in particular, and pop culture devotees in general, love the legal drama. That is, films in which the legal system provides the framework within which the action takes place. Also, these are movies that have a strong “legal thriller” and/or “courtroom drama” component.
The “legal thriller” is a progeny of the crime movie genre, with detectives and policemen replaced by lawyers and other folk connected with the legal profession; it is action-driven, as seen in John Grisham-based hits such as “The Firm”, “The Client” and “The Pelican Brief”. Meanwhile, most exploits of the “courtroom drama” genre take place within the court; it is more talk-driven, and the arc of the movie rises and falls as prosecution and defence build their cases, in such classics as “To Kill a Mockingbird” (1962), “Judgement at Nuremburg” (1961) or “Witness for the Prosecution” (1957).
The big twist
At some level, I think, the legal drama is all about the Twist, not the dance, but the unexpected revelation that makes you relook everything that's been shown onscreen till now. Think of the defective typewriter that surfaces in “Jagged Edge” and makes you realise its owner is the murderer, or the disturbing discovery of one character's evil nature in “Primal Fear”.
Paradoxically, while I play guessing games about the legal drama's Big Twist, I also want to be surprised. That was the single flaw of the gripping – and rather underrated – Anthony Hopkins film “Fracture” (2007), directed by Gregory Hoblit who, incidentally, also made “Primal Fear”. “Fracture” cleverly tells us upfront that Hopkins-dun-it, then challenges us to figure out how he-dunit. I felt the “how” was revealed as a nicely calibrated surprise, but the final twist, signalled a mile off.
I've heard lawyers – real life ones – complaining that their life and profession is nothing like what is portrayed onscreen; that movies tend to pick the most extreme examples, whether it is the insanity plea or improbably outrageous courtroom antics, that it isn't quite truthful.
“You want the truth? You can't handle the truth,” thundered Jack Nicholson as Col. Nathan R. Jessep in “A Few Good Men”, an unforgettable rant that ranks as one of my favourite Hollywood speeches. It was also one of the shortest roles to win a Supporting Actor nomination at the Oscars.
Legal films offer opportunities for great dialogue. As the American Film Institute says of the genre, it is the “drama inherent in the theatre of a courtroom – the accused enters, prosecution and defense state their case, and a jury deliberates” – to ultimately pronounce on the nail-biting central question of the movie: guilty or innocent. But “guilty until proven innocent” is the driver of many a legal drama. “Presumed Innocent” (1990) takes that to extremes, by making the accused our potentially unreliable narrator as well. I well remember the conflict of thinking: the evidence is heavily stacked against him, but as the likeable narrator of our story, could he be guilty of killing his colleague and mistress?
The movie, while well received, couldn't quite capture the ingenuity of its source material, the 1987 Scott Turow novel that's regarded as having ‘reinvented' the legal thriller in a post-Perry Mason world. It's inevitable that so many movies about the legal profession are based on books by authors such as William Diehl, Michael Connelly, Grisham and others. Some legal films, admittedly, I find more appealing than their print version, as with the very recent “The Lincoln Lawyer”.
Regular readers of legal thrillers, however, will have to rely on films developed from original screenplays when we want to watch something and not know what is coming. A movie such as Tony Gilroy's “Michael Clayton”, which dealt with the moral choices faced by lawyers. “Michael Clayton” played beyond genre as a powerful film about “real” people and issues.
Serious, gripping stuff, but onscreen lawyers can laugh at themselves too – in legal comedies such as “My Cousin Vinny” or “Legally Blonde”. The August 2008 edition of the American Bar Association Journal even placed “My Cousin Vinny” as number three in their cover story listing of “The 25 Greatest Legal Movies”, after “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “12 Angry Men”.
These great movies have also given us great heroes – Gregory Peck in “To Kill a Mockingbird”, or Al Pacino in “...And Justice for All”, or even, I might as well admit, Joe Pesci in “My Cousin Vinny”.
Beyond right and wrong
Best-selling legal author William Bernhardt said in connection with legal fiction, “the characters struggle to understand not simply right and wrong but justice – a far more elusive and difficult concept. The desire for justice in a world that seems unjust in the extreme is shared not only by lawyers but also by the common man…” I could argue – and with lawyers as our topic of conversation, argue a lot – that this is why we are interested in legal movies, because the law impacts our life, decides how we can live and what we are permitted to do. These movies bring us up-to-speed with laws, at least those that drive the plot; certainly they're more exciting than textbooks on the subject.
But in the end, I believe, the best legal movies are all about good actors and directors giving us good stories. Whoever tells the story best, wins the case.
