One of the rare real pleasures on TV in recent years has been Amazon’s Bosch miniseries, in which Titus Welliver perfectly embodied the spirit of Michael Connelly’s driven LA police detective. Because of the character’s age in the books, they had to update everything, and they made some major character changes. Nevertheless, the project as a whole was very true to the atmosphere of the stories.
Now Netflix has taken on Connelly’s other major series character, Mickey Haller, in its The Lincoln Lawyer series (in the books, Mickey is actually Harry Bosch’s half-brother). Haller (turns out it rhymes with collar; I always assumed it rhymed with pallor) is a younger character than Bosch, so less radical changes were necessary in cast and setting. All in all, I was pretty pleased with the production.
There has been a Lincoln Lawyer movie already, starring Matthew McConaughey. McConaughey gave an excellent portrayal (in my opinion), but he didn’t look like the character. In the books, Mickey Haller is half Mexican, and dark-haired. Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, who plays him here, is a better physical fit. I didn’t entirely like his portrayal, though, I’ll confess. He sometimes has a mumbling way of speaking – I’m not talking about his slight Mexican accent; there are lots of very articulate actors with accents. Instead, the indistinct delivery made him seem kind of diffident to me; and Mickey Haller hasn’t got a diffident bone in his makeup. I don’t think any good criminal attorney does.
That’s not to say that Garcia-Rulfo gives a bad performance, as such. He was watchable and sympathetic all the way through.
As the series begins, Mickey, formerly an up-and-coming lawyer, is stuck. He was injured in a surfing accident and got hooked on pain medications, which killed his practice. But suddenly he learns that a friend of his, a very successful defense lawyer, has been murdered, and has left his entire practice – all his cases – to Mickey. Knowing that this is his one big break, Mickey pulls his team together (including his second ex-wife and her boyfriend, a biker-cum-private eye) and jumps in cold, sometimes showing up in court without even time to prepare. In one of his first cases, he gets a female client off entirely, and she agrees to pay his bill by driving him around. (If I remember correctly, she was a guy in the book, but here she’s a lesbian, so I suppose they split the difference.) Mickey likes to do his thinking while working in one of his Lincoln cars, hence the title. I think the Lincolns were big, white sedans in the books, but here he alternates between a red convertible and a Navigator. The scenes where he talks to his driver in the car provide great opportunities for dramatic exposition.
His big case, the make-or-break one, is the matter of Trevor Elliott, a hotshot Silicone Valley game developer who’s charged with shooting his wife and her lover to death. Unfortunately, all Mickey’s predecessor’s files have disappeared, so he has to improvise, hunting for weaknesses in the state’s case. Most annoying is Elliott’s insistence that he doesn’t want a continuance, he wants a quick trial – to clear his name before a big business deal goes through. The time pressure is immense, and Mickey is sometimes tempted by his old addiction.
The main weakness I saw in the script was as it was leading up to the “big surprise,” when Mickey finally explains the most damning piece of evidence in the state’s case. Unfortunately, I knew what was coming before I was supposed to (granted, I’ve read the book, but I’d forgotten that particular point).
Nevertheless, overall, the storytelling in The Lincoln Lawyer was outstanding. The dramatic tension constantly ratcheted up, and the characters engaged me.
As an extra-special treat, there was a not-so-subtle poke at bullying Wokeism toward the end. And the final scene involved a Christian reference – even better, the doctrine was entirely correct.
Recommended. Cautions for language, violence, and sexual situations.