The Lincoln Lawyer – Movie Trailer
Mar 30th
Matthew McConaughey stars in this legal thriller as a low-rent defense attorney named Mickey Haller. Most of the time, Mickey barely keeps his head above water, representing low-life clients and working out of the back of his car. He thinks he’s landed the case of a lifetime when he’s hired to defend a rich playboy (Ryan Phillippe) who stands accused of rape and attempted murder, and eagerly accepts his new client and the massive payoff that’s sure to come with him. But Mickey soon discovers that he’s become ensnared in a twisted plot where no fee in the world is high enough to pay for the deadly workload, and his only hope of survival may just lay in his own skills as a long-practiced double-crosser.
“The Lincoln Lawyer” Surprise Endings
Mar 30th
“Surprise Endings”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THE LINCOLN LAWYER stars Matthew McConaughey as Mick Haller, a criminal defense attorney in Los Angeles who works out of the back seat of his chauffeur-driven Lincoln town car.
Earl is Mick’s chauffeur, because Mick lost his driver’s license, but at one point in the movie, Mick tells Earl that he got his license back three month’s earlier.
So, is Mick kind? Vain? Flush with money?
For all we know, Mick might be all three, because at the beginning of the movie, his Lincoln is pulled over by a motorcycle gang whose leader pays Mick $10,000 on top of a previous $5,000 he had paid to get one of the gang’s members out of jail.
The leader of the gang is played by country-music singer Trace Adkins, and the gang will play an important part in the story later in the movie.
And as Mick says, “Rule 1: I get paid, or I don’t work.”
However, the important case of Mick’s that makes up the bulk of the movie is defending a wealthy kid, Louis Roulet, who is accused of assault and attempted rape of a woman he met in a bar.
Mick takes the case even though his investigator, played by William H. Macy, tells Mick that the kid feels “wrong” to him.
Marisa Tomei is also in the movie as Maggie, Mick’s ex-wife who is also a prosecuting attorney. However, Maggie doesn’t have much to do with Mick’s big case, but is more there as someone Mick can go out with at night and they can have a drink together.
So, you can see that Mick has a fairly complicated personal life, and it gets more complicated when the case goes to trial and Mick discovers that his client, Louis, is playing mind games with him.
Louis refuses to take the deal that he is offered by the prosecutor, and everything gets even more interesting when Mick starts playing mind games with Louis after Mick learns some information that might have some bearing on the current case.
At one point you will even ask yourself whose side is Mick on, anyway?
To say that the movie has a surprise ending is an understatement.
THE LINCOLN LAWYER is very entertaining, and it has two surprise endings– no, make that three surprise endings–no, make that four.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Limitless” More Like ‘Overblown’
Mar 29th
LIMITLESS takes its title from the idea of how many opportunities are available to us if we were able to use 100% of our brains instead of the mythological 20% that we use in our everyday lives.
However, scientists say that we already use 100% of our brains, and so the premise of the movie needs a better explanation.
Bradley Cooper plays Eddie Morra, a writer with a book contract, but he looks more like someone with an alcohol or drug problem.
That might be because he doesn’t act like a writer, either, because he is behind on his book, having written only one word, and that word is the first-person, singular pronoun “I.”
Eddie gets even more down on his luck when his girlfriend Lindy breaks up with him, but then his life changes dramatically when he accidentally meets the brother of his ex-wife on the street.
Vernon tells Eddie that he is working for a company that has come out with a new pill called NZT48 that lets you access 100% of your brain, but then he gets interrupted by a phone call and has to leave.
However, Vernon gives Eddie his business card and one of the NZT pills “on the house,” saying that they normally cost $800 apiece.
And the rest, as they say, is this movie.
Special effects show an impression of what happens to Eddie when he takes the pill. “I wasn’t ‘high,’ I was just clear,” he tells us in voice-over narration. “I knew what I wanted to do and how to do it.”
And he does. The next morning, the effects of the pill have worn off, and Eddie gives his book manuscript to his publisher, saying that if she doesn’t like it, he will return the advance.
Then when Vernon doesn’t return Eddie’s calls, Eddie goes to see Vernon with the objective of getting more pills.
And here is where the movie starts leaving the audience with unanswered questions.
Here is also where more characters enter the story, including a Russian loan shark and his hooligans, a financial businessman played by Robert De Niro, a mysterious man who seems to be following Eddie around New York City, and even Eddie’s ex-wife, Melissa.
LIMITLESS makes a thriller out of limitless opportunities, but it is more like “overblown” with unanswered questions.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
