When “The Lincoln Lawyer” was released in March of 2011, I thought that this was one of the best movies about the real life of a lawyer I have ever seen. The main character Mick Heller is played by Matthew McConaughey in what arguably is the best acting role of his career. Heller is a great wheeler dealer, spends most of his days driving around in a vintage Lincoln Continental and is close friends with a large group of hells angels that frequently drive by his Lincoln. Heller has a dedicated full time car driver and his office for the most part is on the back seat of the Lincoln Continental.

The screenplay and story idea for The Lincoln Lawyer is outstanding with its winding complexity with Heller rationalizing having to defend his evil client Louis Roulet, played by Ryan Phillippe. This story is all about the responsibilities of lawyers who are legally and professionally bound to defend their clients at all costs and the obvious conflicts between doing the job and right and wrong. We have all seen this conflict that lawyers face within their professional lives, but this movie does this better than I have ever seen.

The protaganist Roulet is the embodiment of evil throughout this well told story, reminding us that there is no limit to what people will do to other people. Most impressive about this movie is the long list of named actors, including Marisa Tomei, William H. Macy, John Leguizamo, Michael Peña, Trace Adkins and Bryan Cranston, who was in this movie about a year before he hit it huge with “Breaking Bad”.

I thought the conclusion to this drama was extremely well done with a surprising and shocking ending. We go to the movies because we all want life to work out the way it should, with the good winning and the evil among us, getting what they deserve.

The ratings for The Lincoln Lawyer were a very high 83% on Rotten Tomatoes, with my rating more in the 90% range because of the acting and strong message. This movie was so well regarded it has spawned a new series on Netflix with the same name. I have seen season one and it is about as good as the movie, with a second season on the way.