Marisa Tomei

  • The Lincoln Lawyer (2011)

    The Lincoln Lawyer (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theatres, April 2011) There’s been a dearth of courtroom drama over the past few years, and The Lincoln Lawyer isn’t just a good return to the form, it’s about as good an adaption of Michael Connelly’s original novel as fans could have hoped for.  As with most readers of the book learning about the film’s casting, I wasn’t sold on Matthew McConaughey as protagonist-lawyer Mickey Haller: I had always envisioned Haller as more mature and cynical than McConaughey’s typical romantic-comedy laid-back persona.  So it’s a surprise to see him return to serious drama as an older, wiser, far worldlier presence, fully comfortable in the role of a professional defence lawyer operating from his chauffeur-driven car.  Brad Furman’s direction fully embraces the California-noir style of the novel, Los Angeles’ broad avenues offering as many dangers as tiny back-streets.  The cinematography is bright, sunny, energetic and compelling.  Rounding up the main cast are good supporting performances by Ryan Phillippe (detestable as always), Marisa Tomei and William H. Macy.  While the twists and turns of the plotting are familiar, they’re well-handled and make up for a refreshing legal drama that proves that execution is often more important than fresh concepts.  The Lincoln Lawyer may be less reflective about the role of defence lawyers than the book, but it still delivers enough legal manoeuvres to keep things interesting.  For some, it may be the start of a franchise (there are now three further Haller adventures on the shelves); for most, though, it’s a solid, well-paced, well-made crime drama with a cynical smirk: Exactly the kind of film that’s always welcome.

  • War, Inc. (2008)

    War, Inc. (2008)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, September 2008) Sharing political outlooks with the film’s writers doesn’t necessarily imply that I’m more favorably predisposed to forgive the film’s increasingly annoying missteps. A mess of good intentions and weak satire, War Inc illustrated how difficult reality has become to parody: The idea of a wholly-outsourced war sponsored by big businesses isn’t that funny or outlandish, and the film flops from weak smiles to even weaker laughs. Worse is the idea to turn the film in some kind of redemptive experience for a paid assassin: it never totally works, and stops the film dead whenever time had to be spent developing this particular storyline. For a comedy, War, Inc remains curiously dull, as if the jokes were all taking place on an entirely different plane of humor, sometime intersecting with ours. The direction can’t patch to holes in this low-budget production, and the script (co-written by Mark Leyner, of all people!) clearly has no clue what to prioritize and what to leave behind. Some of the earliest laughs even come at the expense of the pictures, as it presents a fantasy version of “Iqualuit, Nunavut” that has nothing to do with the real place. The film isn’t a complete disaster thanks to good but misused actors such as John Cusak and the always-cute Marisa Tomei, but it’s a great deal less impressive than it could have been. Even the film’s leftist politics are more annoying than anything else: anti-capitalism and anti-war targets are so easy that it takes some effort to miss those targets. I may be on the picture’s political side, but is it too much to ask that the film be, at least, smart?