I enjoy legal movies just as much as the next person (The Caine Mutiny and Inherit The Wind are my favorites). Paul Newman won an Oscar nomination for this film playing a down and out lawyer named Frank Galvin who has fallen on hard times (and into alcoholism as well). Once an important lawyer he has only had four cases in three years losing them all. We see him going to funerals and giving out his card. He spends the first part of the film playing pinball in a bar while telling dirty jokes in a dumb Irish brogue. Jack Warden, always a great character actor, plays his former partner who offers him one last chance at redemption a case involving a young comatose women who suffered permanent brain damage during childbirth at a large Catholic hospital. Galvin finds himself going up against the hospitals high price lawyer played by James Mason (I always think of him in North By Northwest he makes a slimy bad guy). The Verdict is technically a good film with a satisfying ending but my problem is that Newman's character is so unlikeable. He really isn't that good of a lawyer and spends a good part of the film bumbling around like Inspector Clouseau and making a fool of himself in court. Its only at the end that he pulls a rabbit out of a hat and gives a brilliant summation and a surprise witness comes forward to pull his case out of the fire. By the way, Bruce Willis is one of the spectators in the courtroom as Newman sums up his case.
Review of The Verdict
