ABCs at the Movies: The Doubles Round!

[Ellemeno]

Well, okay, I'll suggest the next round too!  My sister just found out she passed the bar exam.

Let's have a round of lawyer movies!
All usual rules apply.

(Image not of my actual sister)

[Ellemeno]

Tagline: This man needs the best lawyer in town. But the problem is... he is the best lawyer in town.

[southendmd]

IMDb:  Three Australian lieutenants are court martialed for executing prisoners as a way of deflecting attention from war crimes committed by their superior officers.

=aside=
Congrats to Sister Elle.

[Fran]

IMDb:  A newly divorced swinger on the prowl goes to work as a detective for a neurotic feminist attorney.

[memento]

IMDB: Defence attorney Kevin Lomax has never lost one single case. He is invited to New York to work for a big law firm ruled by senior board member John Milton, who showers him with wealth and feeds his vanity. Kevin's wife just wants to have a baby and is distressed by Kevin always being on a case and never at home. She starts to lose her grip on reality - or so it seems. Kevin Lomax is about to find out about his true heritage and the grand scheme John Milton is running from his penthouse apartment.

[southendmd]

IMDb:  This is a wonderful movie.

I admit this movie is manipulative, and probably exaggerated for purposes of drama, but what based-on-a-true story movies aren't? At least it goes after the right things: a father having custody of his kids, rather than them being forced to live in an "institution."

The story is based a true situation in the mid 1950s Ireland in which, in the end, the Irish Constitution was amended because of this case. "Desmond Doyle" (Pierce Brosnan) is the loving father whose wife runs off one day with another man, leaving him with three little kids and little visible means of support. Since he didn't have enough finances, the government makes the kids wards of the state and places them in Catholic schools-homes (institutions?).

On that Catholic, or "religious," angle, you get a lot of positive and negative scenes here. You have a bad, nasty almost sadistic nun "Sister Brigid," but the others are fine caring ladies, as they should be. Overall, however, you see a lot of faith portrayed in this film and it's mostly good. Of course, that faith was more out in the open in the '50s than today, but it was inspiring to see in many parts.

Brosnan is excellent in the lead role, a man everyone can identify with: a loving but flawed man. He drinks too much, he swears, he doesn't have a steady job but he has great heart and has great determination to the right thing. One has no trouble rooting for him in this story. I think it's the best role he has ever played, far better than his superficial James Bond or thieves roles he normally plays.But nobody hits you as emotionally as little Evelyn (Sophie Vavasseur), one of Doyle's three kids and the one that is focused upon here. (The two little brothers are not given much screen time, for some reason.) Brosnan's allies in here - the two lawyers (played by Stephen Rea and Aiden Quinn) are likable as is Alan Bates who plays a rugged ex-barrister who winds up helping the team. Bates might have had the best role for the supporting actors.

This is such an involving story, one that you really care about the people, it can bring a tear or two in the end, but what's wrong with that? When you are finished watching this film, you feel good.

[Fran]

IMDb:  Lawyer Joe Morse wants to consolidate all the small-time numbers racket operators into one big powerful operation. But his elder brother Leo is one of these small-time operators who wants to stay that way, preferring not to deal with the gangsters who dominate the big-time.

[oilgun]

IMDb Plot Synopsis: Bill is a man who's very bitter about his divorce and losing custody of his son. So, when one of his friends is being sued for divorce by hiw wife so that she can enter a lesbian relationship, Bill decides to help his friend gain custody of his son...in any way that they can devise, including using a sleazeball lawyer [excuse the oxymoron  ]. But while Bill feels that Feminism has robbed him of his family, he begins to be appalled at what he and Roger have done.

[southendmd]

IMDb:  Two golddiggers go fishing for millionaires in Havana. 

With Joan Blondell and Glenda Farrell.  Lawyer played by Frank McHugh.

[Fran]

IMDb:  Rural Mississippi in the 1940s: Lucas Beauchamp, a local black man with a reputation of not kowtowing to whites, is found standing over the body of a dead white man, holding a pistol that has recently been fired. Quickly arrested for murder and jailed, Beauchamp insists he's innocent and asks the town's most prominent lawyer, Gavin Stevens, to defend him, but Stevens refuses. When a local boy whom Beauchamp has helped in the past and who believes him to be innocent hears talk of a mob taking Beauchamp out of jail and lynching him, he pleads with Stevens to defend Beauchamp at trial and prove his innocence.