Here we are, full circle! As Bryan Cranston's cop asks the titular character towards the end, "whose side are you on anyway?" It's a clunky bit of expositional dialogue which takes away from Matthew McConaughey's complex second round as a struggling lawyer. This time he swaps the fiery tension (and fiery temperatures) of Mississippi for California as Mickey Haller - whose nickname comes from the Lincoln Town Car he uses as an office - who acts as the defence for a similarly controversial crime to A Time To Kill. Is the heir to a lucrative real estate fortune (played to douchey perfection by Ryan Phillipe) guilty of beating a prostitute to within an inch of her life? It seems like a set up but, as the story unfolds, things start to get a bit more complicated than that. For one thing, Haller begins noticing similarities to an earlier case of his... Watching this film in comparison to A Time To Kill, it's clear to see that McConaughey had come on leaps and bounds as an actor. His performance in the Grisham adaptation was damn fine, but this film version of a Michael Connelly book gives him even more to do. The good fifteen years of work between the two of them is obvious as he knocks it out of the park as an attorney with even shakier morales than his media-chasing Jake Brigance, with a look behind the eyes that comes only with age (or possibly special contact lenses). The film's an enjoyable bit of hokum - like A Time To Kill, it's fairly average in its direction and plot twists - but it has possibly the clearest evidence that the McConaissance has been a long time coming. Right on the cusp of that recent run of home runs, this is the first pitch; not quite as clean, but still a doozy. Right now McConaughey's playing for the World Series (of acting) (that's a baseball thing, right?) but it's just as exhilarating to see how he qualified.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
