It’s not often, as a movie critic, that I go into a movie and not know SOMEthing about it. I will usually see a trailer or TV commercial or, at the very least, read a tiny summary of the plot. This was not the case with “The Lincoln Lawyer”. I had not seen any type of advertisement for it and read nothing about it at all. All I knew was that it was based on a novel by Michael Connelly and that Matthew McConaughey was in it playing a lawyer who drives a Lincoln.
It turns out, that last part was not even correct. Matthew plays Mick Haller a defense lawyer who rides in the back of his Lincoln, the license plate of the car reads, “NTGUILTY”. He is driven around by his faithful driver, Earl (Laurence Mason). Haller is known for getting “real scum” back on the streets. “How do you live with yourself?” one detective asks him. Haller takes on a high profile client, Louis Roulet (Ryan Phillippe, who gives his best performance to date). He comes from a very rich family and is accused of brutally beating a woman. Roulet claims his innocence to the point where he is drawn to tears in anguish that this has happened to him. The questions then become: Is Roulet guilty or not? Can Haller get him off whether he is or not?
