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Reviews
The Lincoln Lawyer (2011)
Slow down....!
Comparisons of films with the books they're based are not, always, odious, especially when the book is a masterpiece, and the film...isn't.
The problem with this excellently cast and produced movie is that it's just a mite tad too slick. Michael Connelly's book shows attorney Mickey Haller from the start as not entirely a sleaze. While he does get bad guys off, he works within the system, such as it is, and he does have a refined moral sense; and it's evident from the start of the book that he's a good guy and that sense is destined to come out.
If you could play back the movie at half-speed, perhaps you might get the true feel of the story. It should not have been made as a fast-paced adventure-thriller. That was never Connelly's intention, and it spoils a lot of the experience. What happens in the book is that Mickey Haller's character evolves. He's sick of the law, of playing the game, and longs to be his better self. A difficult case gives him the chance, and he takes it.
Connelly does a wonderful job of showing us how Mickey molts from a sleeping soul to a shining knight. Michael Connelly is a master craftsman. He does, in short, clear sentences, what lesser writers can never do - he touches our hearts. Read the reviews of the book on Amazon; you'll see how many readers valued this.
It is, after all, one of the great themes of books that inspire and uplift: a person faces difficult tests, is jolted out of their usual way of being, and finds fulfillment in doing the right thing. Connelly is just a wonderful writer. Obviously, his classic book was passed through the meat grinder by Hollywood bean-counters. "People like fast action - okay, we'll take this exemplary book and turn it into 'The Detective' on methamphetamine." The best I can say about it is that I hope it will make some viewers curious about the book. It probably won't; it just doesn't give us an experience that many of us would want to risk repeating. If you read Michael Connelly's book, Bloodwork, then saw the movie, I can tell you that the difference is just about that extreme, and that unfortunate. Bloodwork was a great book, and the movie, as expected, sucked.
Suburban Commando (1991)
Amusing
Sweet and amusing. Maybe you need to watch it when you're very, very tired, like Mr. Hulot's Holiday. Or maybe the ideal venue would be a crowded matinée showing packed with teenagers just out of school, like PeeWee's Big Adventure. I dunno, I smiled a lot - the script was self-consciously corny and silly, but very well-done silly. Or maybe you need an IQ temporarily 30 points lower than your best shot. Can't help thinking that if you liked Harold and Maude or Ferris Buehler or Stripes or (parts of) Caddyshack (cut to Carl Spackler), you'd be amused, too. In the immortal words of Jean-Paul Sartre, "Au revoir, goph...uh, aliens."