The Verdict

 2/4

Starring: Paul Newman, Jack Warden, Charlotte Rampling, James Mason, Milo O'Shea

Rated R (probably for Language)

An array of top talent does not always guarantee a great movie.  Usually it does, but not always.  Take "The Irishman," for example.  Despite the legendary combination of Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci and Martin Scorsese, it turned out to be a rare miss from the essential New York filmmaker.  At least I thought so.  "The Verdict" is another case of big talent not equaling big success.  Acting legends Paul Newman, Charlotte Rampling, Jack Warden and James Mason in a legal drama directed by the equally legendary Sidney Lumet and with a script from David Mamet.  It should have been great.  But the film is too slow and too unfocused to really deliver.

Frank Gavin's (Newman) life has been marred by disappointment.  His promising legal career ended when he refused to be dishonest (and so did his marriage).  Now he's turned to booze and the odd case sent his way by his friend, Mick Morrissey (Warden).  One day Mick delivers an easy win case to Frankie: a medical malpractice suit that the archdiocese is willing to settle.  But Frankie has a crisis of conscience and refuses the easy way out and decides to go to trial.  Meanwhile he's also involved with a new woman in his life, the sensuous and alluring Laura Fischer (Rampling).

If there is any reason to see "The Verdict," is because of Paul Newman.  Newman was and is so legendary that it's easy to forget that he was one hell of an actor.  He buries himself deep inside Frank's skin wholly and completely.  I won't claim that none of his trademark charm slides through, but when it does, it's for a purpose.  It shows how Frank has found a break in his lifetime fog of pain and booze.

Unfortunately he's stuck in a story that is, well, not that interesting.  Frank Gavin is a compelling character, but the malpractice suit feels like an episode of "Law and Order" made for daytime TV.  It's dull and should have been left as an afterthought.  Newman is so strong that even if Lenny Briscoe appeared nothing could match him.  Lumet is trying to show how the case, which grips Frank with the same obsession of a man with delusions that accomplishing a single task will solve all his problems, feeds into his road to redemption.  But trying is different from succeeding.  The reality is that Frank's character development feels shortchanged in favor of a legal melodrama that doesn't mean much and has more holes than Swiss cheese.

It's a shame really.  Newman is something special in this one.  I just with the film had earned the right to use him.

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