A Few Good Men : Legal Film #4

I love Rob Reiner.  I do.  Please disregard all the mean things I’m about to say about him.

Man, Rob Reiner fucked this movie.

                 

Aaron Sorkin’s fantastic writing – sharp and quick, really well-thought out – is paired with Reiner’s “It’s a romantic comedy in New York” style of directing.  How can someone who directs Billy Crystal being New-York-Y-Snarky during falltime direct a tense legal drama?  

I suppose my problem with it came down to the fact that it should be tense and dry, but Rob Reiner is such a cinematic director.  I know that sounds silly to say, but he certainly includes all the bells and flourishes when it comes to decorating a film – the sharp cut, the dramatic music, the panning-across-a-city, etc.  It found myself shouting “God, this is so from the NINETIES” every ten seconds, because every stylistic choice that I associate with shitty 90s romcoms and The Net was there.  

                                               I wish this movie had a lawyer in it...

But this is a fucking Aaron Sorkin movie!  This is – or at least could be – an incredibly sharp, dry, not-at-all cheesy exploration of justice and legality.  Watching Tom Cruise doing his logical tricks and strut around the courtroom would have been more entertaining if I was so distracted by what a smarmy, jock archetype he was.  Not because of the writing, but the decisions of the director – when to zoom in, when to cut, when to play dramatic music - emphasized all that shit to no end.

                      I do like that Kevin Fish is in this.  That does make it slightly better.

In a nutshell – a pretty fun script with cheesy-as-all-fuck directing.  I wouldn’t put it as a requirement to watch for Great American Movies, but I would suggest watching it if you are an Aaron Sorkin nerd.

                                                            Ladies....

Nancy Is A Lawyer?

This movie is one of the few that everyone shouts when you say the words “legal drama” or “classic courtroom film” or “I really have a weird thing for Jack Nicholson?” which are all words I say often.  

                                                            Aw, yeah.

But I really felt like it had way less to do with the actual legal process or painting law in a realistic way then any of the other movies I’ve watched so far.  It was all pomp and fury of law, and very little actual research and dirty work, which is what I am interested in seeing.  For example, Demi Moore has a ‘sinking suspicion’ that something more went on at Gitmo.  I’m more interested in her work in discovering the sinking suspicion than the courtroom drama.

                 

I understand that films have to be cinematic and engaging.  But honestly, I gleaned nothing real about the legal process from this film.  It also put a huge emphasis on charm and clever manipulation.  Which is certainly part of the legal profession, but I get the impression that you spend about 2% of your time, maybe, like Tom Cruise in this movie.

The only thing this movie did well was the Nicholson monologue at the end, regarding justice    and what we do to preserve our false sense of order.  I would have loved this movie to explore this more, but it was too easy to just paint Jack Nicholson as the bad guy and carry him away.    This movie is all of the showy aspects of law, with very little of the deliberation.  This is possibly why 12 Angry Men is one of my favorite movies – because it is *all* deliberation.

                            This movie is great!  I wish I could talk about it!!!

I mean, I could day dream about changing the world and rehearse court cases in the shower, as I’m sure many folks entering into the legal profession do.  But I am much more attracted to the Finch way of approaching law, which is simply dutifully fettering away and doing your best until  you help one person’s life, as opposed to being on a holy crusade for justice.  It felt like Demi and Tom were standing atop a mountain screaming “This just isn’t…right!” when I feel like law should be a more careful deliberation of what good and bad actually is, and what that means for actual people.  And the only time this film ever comes close to those questions is when Jack Nicholson shouts at Tom for questioning his methods, and reminds him that human law and justice is not as simple as his lawbooks would lead him to believe.  Good point, Jack!  And then he goes to jail forever and ever and Tom and Demi get married and have, like, a million of each others babies.

                                                       Mah-wwage!!!

I did not like this movie.  This movie made me want to be a lawyer to spite it.