Starring: Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Neve Campbell, Becki Newton, Angus Sampson, Christopher Gorham, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine, Jazz Raycole
One key to enjoying the new Netflix series The Lincoln Lawyer is to understand that Matthew McConaughey is not starring in it. The Mick Haller of the series is played by Mexican actor Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, who inhabits the world of Haller's expensive suits and adept legal maneuvering with authority and intelligence, if not with McConaughey's innate ability to tackle the role with more playfulness and cynicism. This is a different Haller, one reentering the legal world after eighteen months on the sidelines following a surfing accident and subsequent addiction to painkillers. He has no clients, but soon inherits a boatload of them when a colleague is murdered and Haller learns the colleague has bequeathed his practice to him. This Mick Haller isn't having as much fun as the other incarnation.
The inheritance is both a blessing and a curse since Haller is taking on cases for which he has never even seen a file and clients he has never met. His highest-profile client is tech billionaire Trevor Elliott (Gorham-looking a lot like Joe Buck), who is charged with murdering his wife and her lover and insists that Mick does not motion for a continuance. He wants to clear his name as soon as possible, but we learn there is more to the equation because of course there is. Besides a daunting caseload, Mick deals with being a doting father and two ex-wives, Maggie (Campbell) who works for the district attorney's office, and Lorna (Newton) who runs Mick's office and whose fiance Cisco (Sampson) is Mick's chief investigator. He is on amicable terms with both ex-wives, but would prefer to be on romantic terms with Maggie again. Driving Mick around in his flashy Lincoln SUV is Izzy, a recovering heroin addict whom Mick represents in a grand theft case and is able to get her case dismissed. Izzy goes to work as Mick's driver and confidante, with their mutual battles with drugs and alcohol uniting them. Mick is also haunted by a client he plea-bargained into a prison sentence who it turns out may be innocent.
Is the murder of his legal colleague Jerry Vincent related to Trevor's case? Trevor insists he is innocent (doesn't every murder suspect?), but something about the case gnaws at him. Why does Trevor want to testify even though the case is clearly going his way? Why did he lie to police about not knowing about his wife's affair? The best aspects of The Lincoln Lawyer, adapted by David E. Kelley (most recently of Goliath), are the courtroom scenes. They play as smoothly and compellingly as Goliath's with Garcia-Rulfo as their charismatic center. I can't say I'm 100 percent sure how the Big Reveal which ties the Vincent murder and Trevor's case adds up, but it sure follows the tradition of courtroom whodunits like this one.
Even though The Lincoln Lawyer does not possess the joyful charm of the movie and while Garcia-Rulfo has his strengths in the Mick Haller role, it is a different take on the character and The Lincoln Lawyer, while juggling plenty of balls in the air, works on its own merits.
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