The Verdict (1982)

 

I'll stick this week too to an old movie, same age as the one of last time. There's nothing else I've had time to watch since then. "The Verdict" is part of a narrow niche, somehow close to John Grisham's "legal thrillers", but more of a "legal drama" and less thriller.

Frank Galvin (in an exceptional performance of Paul Newman) is a lawyer, who after a case suspected of jury tampering, is almost expelled from the bar, his wife leaves him, and he becomes an alcoholic, not able to get more than four cases in three years, all lost. A chance to change things appears with a medical malpractice case, where the victim is in a vegetative state for some years, and her sister and brother-in-law want to get a financial compensation to continue paying for the treatment and also to move out of town. The diocese that owns the hospital agrees to settle for some amount to avoid the trial. The solution seems convenient for everybody, and would also save Galvin's bankruptcy, but the guy is suddenly struck by his moral values... which say that there's no justice for the victim if the doctors are still allowed to practice. 

So, against all advice, Galvin decides alone that he has enough advantage to start a trial. What follows is a tough legal war with the law firm hired by the other side, experienced enough to remove all that seemed to be in favor of winning the case. Let's not spoil more of it.

The movie runs almost like a theatrical representation (it might be actually possible to stage it as such). After all, David Mamet, who signed the script is also known as playwright. Despite my generic hostility of transposing a play into a movie - in the sense of feeling that the final output is stripped of certain cinematic elements - what we have here is actually a really good play. Obviously it doesn't excel technically, and you can feel the age, but it compensates enough through acting and the action that ends with some twists that make it worth your time.

Rating: 4 out of 5