Caught this at Greenhills Theater Mall w/ lawyer-to-be Rons. Hey, a lawyer movie! Finally I can ask about what legal moves done in the movie would work in real life. That said, there's not enough interesting points in the movie for me to bring up 10 Thoughts.I haven't watched any good legal dramas on TV in a long time, so all I can do is compare this movie to a pseudo-special episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, in that we already know whodunnit and are just waiting for the criminal to get caught.
Kudos to both Ryan "Johnny-Storm-clone" Gosling as Willy Beachum and Anthony "I-can't-place-his-accent" Hopkins as Ted Crawford. There were times though when they could've been replaced with George Eads and Robin Williams, respectively. The former because of Gosling's character's Southern accent, the latter because of some of the clever lines being delivered by Hopkins' character. And for a thriller/mystery, there were a surprisingly good number of them written.
The Moment of Truth scene concerned whether or not Beachum would call up his assistant and present false evidence to the judge. I actually found myself mutting nonono, don't dial that number, ya fool. That was the extent of my Yelling at the Movie Screen behavior.
As proof of padding the film, there was the almost pointless character of Nikki Gardner, played by Rosamund Pike. Her relationship with Beachum went nowhere in the end, all the more making me question the point of that Thanksgiving dinner scene, other than to give Beachum a judge to run to (Nikki's dad) near the end. Again, pointless.
No Sixth Sense-like twist ending, just an anticipated twist w/ the prerequisite flashbacks. All in all not-bad for a flick, but for me just dvd-worthy.
On more positive notes, Ron was great company as always, and I encountered 2 friendly familiar faces! Hi to Nikki Wong and Annie Coo (Whose picture you see here, found completely by chance online. Ain't she purty?)
