Directed by: Sidney Lumet
Starring: Paul Newman, James Mason, Charlotte Rampling, Jack Warden, Milo O' Shea
Boston attorney Frank Galvin hasn't had any substantial cases in the last four years. He drinks heavily, lamenting lost opportunities and other failures which plague him. It's amazing he can even keep his practice. Things begin to turn around when his lawyer friend Mickey (Warden) finds Frank a malpractice case against a powerful local Catholic hospital. A woman was admitted there to deliver her baby and, due to doctors' negligence, she ended up in a permanent coma. Mickey sees a large settlement coming which would turn things around for Frank.
The game plan changes drastically when Frank visits the comatose woman in the hospital. Hooked to a ventilator with no hope of awakening, Frank decides to forego the settlement and go to trial. "If I don't do this, then I'm lost," he tells the Archbishop who offered a $210,000 settlement in hopes of avoiding negative publicity. This news doesn't please the woman's sister and brother-in-law, but Frank believes he finally has a chance to do the right thing.
I probably made The Verdict sound like a feel-good made-for-TV movie, but doing the right thing is not without its troubles for Frank. He can't find any witnesses that worked in the emergency room that night to testify. His opponent is Edward Concannon (Mason), who has an expert team prepared to decimate Frank's case. He encounters romance with a woman named Laura (Rampling) who turns out to be a plant from Concannon to gather information. This breaks Frank's heart and his confrontation with her would likely get him thrown in jail if it happened today.
As played by Paul Newman, Frank Galvin is weary, aging, and struggling to push forward. He becomes determined for the first time in years to prove that he is still a good lawyer. Glavin wears the suit and looks the part, but his practice represents the underside of the legal profession. It is among Newman's best performances. Concannon, on the other hand, has meetings in large conference rooms with all of the day's best technology at his disposal. He rationalizes his methods by stating, "The only to keep yourself employed and paid is to win."
The trial doesn't appear to be going Frank's way either and he makes an enemy of the judge by calling him a "bag man for the rich boys downtown." Mickey and Frank catch a huge break when they track down a nurse who was present in the emergency room that night and seemingly fell off the face of the Earth. She was forced to alter documents by the doctors in order to cover up their negligence. Director Lumet's handling of her courtroom appearance is masterful. One of the doctors accused of malpractice finishes testifying and walks from the witness box back to the defendants' table. He is shown from the back and when the name "Kaitlin Costello" (the witness) is announced, he stops dead in his tracks and looks towards Concannon. The viewer sees the look of dread on the doctor's face. He knows their case has just been lost. Concannon's desperate insistence on trying to get her testimony stricken from the record only confirms her story more with the jury. What a great scene. A follow-up scene in which a lawyer meets with the Archbishop after is also handled very well. "Her testimony is stricken," the doctor says. "But did they believe her?" the Archbishop asks. The look on the lawyer's face reflects his resignation that they won't win, despite Concannon's legal maneuverings.
The Verdict is a character study with a trial wrapped around it. Frank finally wins his redemption,
and in the end, Frank is sitting contemplating his future as the phone call from Laura rings endlessly. Will there be any more cases like this one to fall into his lap? Does he have anything left after putting forth so much effort to win a seemingly unwinnable case? Only he knows those answers.
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