The Verdict (1982)
Directed by Sidney Lumet
Frank Galvin is a down-on-his-luck lawyer and reduced to drinking and ambulance chasing, when a former associate reminds him of his obligations in a medical malpractice suit by serving it to Galvin on a silver platter—all parties are willing to settle out of court. Blundering his way through the preliminaries, Galvin suddenly realizes that the case should actually go to court—to punish the guilty, to get a decent settlement for his clients... and to restore his standing as a lawyer.
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What critics compared The Verdict to
The courtroom thriller used to be a staple of big-studio "adult" product, and the genre produced some notable --Â some would have said "important" --Â pictures over the course of its long heyday, from " Witness for the Prosecution " and " Anatomy of a Murder " in the '50s to " The Verdict " and, God help us, " Jagged Edge " in the '80s.
For “Lincoln Lawyer” to have worked it needed to be a cross between Sidney Lumet’s “The Verdict” and Robert Altman’s “The Long Goodbye.”
After all, Paul Newman had to struggle to stay sober in “The Verdict”; James Stewart had to go against a big-city lawyer in “Anatomy of a Murder.”
And the most poignant is Paul Newman's Frank Galvin - an ageing alcoholic who retrieves his self-esteem by taking on a seemingly unwinnable medical malpractice suit in Sidney Lumet's The Verdict (1982).
It's not exactly Sidney Lumet's The Verdict, nor does it re-invent the wheel of its particular sub-genre, but who says it needs re-inventing in the first place?
Like the Paul Newman figure in The Verdict, Michael is working-class and has both lust and contempt for the legal establishment that will hire him as the help but not invite him to sit at the table.
Gilroy's crafty original script is a legal thriller in the vein of Sidney Lumet's "The Verdict" and Sydney Pollack's "Absence of Malice."
Like the movie it’s most akin to – Sidney Lumet’s masterful The Verdict – there’s a strange subjective synchronicity that occurs.
The bones of the story are recognizable from courtroom dramas like The Verdict or … And Justice for All: A burned-out attorney finds his conscience when he uncovers a case so rotten that he can't not fight the good fight.
Tony Gilroy, screenwriter of the "Bourne" adventures, makes his writing/directing debut with a throwback to trim, intelligent moral thrillers like "The Verdict" and "Absence of Malice."
The way in wasn’t through looking at courtroom dramas like Michael Clayton, A Few Good Men, or The Verdict, but taking inspiration from The Insider, a thriller where a chemist became a whistleblower on the tobacco industry.
Siendo bastante clara la influencia de cintas como The Verdict, de Sidney Lumet…
Like his films “The Verdict” and “Dog Day Afternoon, this is a story of personal strength and the winning of the game by inches, and an inch at a time.
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Sprinkling in nods to “12 Angry Men,” “The Verdict,” and “A Few Good Men” though also structured in the vein of “The Rainmaker” and “The Firm” to help elevate the picture to mainstream status.
Director John Madden probably wouldn’t mind Miss Sloane being compared to The Verdict or And Justice for All .
Mamet, who wrote the award-winning plays "Glengarry Glen Ross" and "American Buffalo," as well as the screenplays for "The Verdict" and "The Untouchables," tackles a couple of Hollywood's hoariest cliches with "The Edge" the outdoor action/adventure and "buddy" film genres.