Review of The Verdict (1982) by Kenneth L — 24 Aug 2013

While this movie might seem a little staid by today's standards, it's a solid example of the sort of serious, grown-up movie that mainstream Hollywood used to make regularly in the 1970s and early 1980s.

It's billed as a legal thriller, but it's really more of a character drama about the lawyer himself, and the actual case is incidental to the lawyer's quest to redeem himself from his descent into alcoholic, ambulance-chasing desuetude.

Paul Newman's performance is excellent, though it quite deliberately lacks the sort of scruffy charm of many of his earlier performances. Charlotte Rampling is severe as the woman the lawyer unwisely falls in love with, and James Mason's particular brand of genteel disdain makes for an opposing counsel you don't mind rooting against, even though he's not a total mustache-twirling villain.

The movie was written by David Mamet, but very early on in his career, before he had perfected his signature style. It was directed by the underrated Sidney Lumet, and while it's not one of his best movies on the level of Network or 12 Angry Men, it's still a solid testament to Lumet's skill with serious and potentially dry subject matter.

If it isn't the most rousing of courtroom movies, the downbeat ending does feel very realistic and appropriately unsentimental.