Still pluggin' away at these old movies, so let's do another Oscar Film Journal entry, here at Enuffa.com!
The year is 1982, the director is Sidney Lumet, the genre is legal drama (coincidentally the same as the film that put Lumet on the map), the star is Paul Newman, the film is The Verdict.
Based on a 1980 Barry Reed novel and adapted by vaunted playwright-turned-screenwriter David Mamet, The Verdict tells the story of deadbeat ambulance chaser Frank Galvin, who once had a promising career as an attorney but lost that and his marriage to the bottle. He now scours the Boston Globe obituary section looking for opportunities to convince the bereaved to pursue wrongful death suits. When we first meet Frank, this strategy is going very badly for him and he is kicked out of a funeral home for attempting to solicit work. He spends most of his waking hours at a local Irish bar, pounding shots of whiskey and occasionally hitting on women (one of whom, played by Charlotte Rampling actually succumbs to his charms, but isn't quite what she seems). One day his former partner Mickey (Jack Warden) sends him a medical malpractice case involving a woman admitted to a Catholic hospital during labor, who was seemingly administered the wrong form of anesthesia, leaving her in a coma and on life support. The woman's sister and brother-in-law have filed suit against the church and the doctor in charge, hoping to land a significant settlement, of which Frank stands to retain one third.
What seems like a surefire payday for both parties becomes something much more after Frank visits the comatose woman and has a crisis of conscience. After all, doesn't the acceptance of an undisclosed settlement constitute a bribe from a corrupt archdiocese to keep quiet about their malfeasance? Wouldn't it just allow them to do the same to other patients without proper repercussions? Frank opts instead to force the case to go to trial and expose the truth, much to the chagrin of his clients. Unfortunately his star witness, an expert anesthesiologist, goes missing, and the judge presiding over the case is very clearly in the church's back pocket, to say nothing of the defendants' crack legal team led by accomplished trial lawyer Ed Concannon (a reptilian James Mason). The game becomes more and more rigged against Frank and his clients, but he remains steadfast in pursuing true justice.
Structurally and visually The Verdict feels a lot like a film noir, with a deeply flawed protagonist going up against a predatory machine, filmed in intense lights and darks to create a murky atmosphere and highlight Newman's weathered features. At a time when most dramas featured very matter-of-fact cinematography, this is a beautiful-looking film with a relatable David vs. Goliath theme.
Newman and Mason both turn in Oscar-worthy performances (both of which were nominated that year), Newman as a basically decent man who long ago lost his way but sees a path to redemption if he can just make good here, Mason as a slimy, unscrupulous, mannered blood-sucker whose expertise at gaming the law has allowed him to become one of the most powerful attorneys in town.
The courtroom scenes play out as exercises in futility for Frank, as his witnesses are dissected in cross-examination and ultimately dismissed on technicalities, and Frank has no recourse left except to appeal to the jury's sense of humanity. The film's eventual resolution was the subject of great conflict between Mamet and the producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown. Mamet's original draft left the jury's decision to the imagination, ending the film before they delivered their titular verdict. But eventually after numerous rewrites the filmmakers arrived at the existing conclusion, which given the slew of roadblocks standing in the way of the plaintiffs' case does feel perhaps a tad unearned. It's certainly not uncommon for a jury to defy a judge's order to disregard certain testimony, but as a cynic I found the ending here a bit too clean.
Then again, the trial is really just a plot device to explore Newman's character, his world-weariness and resignation to defeat until the case reignites his sense of honor. Newman is superbly understated and his performance, along with Lumet's direction and Andrzej Bartkowiak's moody cinematography, carry the film beyond the trappings of a courtroom drama.
My verdict for The Verdict is ***1/2 out of ****.
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