User Reviews

Before we launch into my full review, I have something of a shameful confession to make. Paul Newman is considered one of the finest actors that Hollywood has ever produced, his long career producing a great abundance of terrific films and stunning performances. And now for the confession: 'The Verdict (1982)' is the earliest film in which I've seen Paul Newman. Having seen his solid performances in 'The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)' and especially 'Road to Perdition (2002),' I already have great respect for his talents, but it'd be ignorant to deny that I'm still yet to experience his finest hours. In Sidney Lumet's 1982 courtroom drama, Newman plays Frank Galvin an aging, alcoholic lawyer who, a long time ago, lost whatever confidence and self-respect he once had. The film also boasts an impressive supporting cast, including James Mason, Jack Warden and Charlotte Rampling.

Newman really is superb in the film's main role. His Frank Galvin is a tortured character: once an honest and successful lawyer, Frank's career and marriage were ruined after his employers framed him for jury-tampering, reducing him to a disheartened, immoral "ambulance-chaser" in order to survive. His good friend and colleague, Mickey Morrissey (Jack Warden), is dismayed at his deterioration, but nonetheless agrees to offer Frank one final case, which is sure to be settled easily outside court. However, after visiting his comatose client – her life forever destroyed by the negligence of the hospital doctors – Frank spies redemption within his grasp, and so resolves to achieve justice at any cost. Rounding off the perfect triangle of veteran performers (each of whom had worked with director Sidney Lumet previously) is Jason Mason, who plays respected lawyer Ed Concannon with such composure and acumen that you're almost willing to declare him the winner of the case.

When it comes to discussing 'The Verdict,' Lumet's cinematic debut '12 Angry Men (1957)' seems the natural comparison, though that's yet another classic that I haven't seen {Sidney Lumet has recently become my director-to-watch, after producing one of the most thrilling movies ever made, 'Fail-Safe (1964)'}. Lumet gives the entire film a wintry, coldly-detached tone, with the camera often settled in the distance and making effective use of long shots. The script was penned by David Mamet from a novel by Barry Reed, cruelly placing obstacle after obstacle on Frank Galvin's path to redemption, until his self-esteem is all but destroyed. It is only through the encouragement of Mickey Morrissey and recent-girlfriend Laura Fischer (Charlotte Rampling) that Frank can find the strength to continue the trial, though the latter also plays a more sinister role in the unfolding of the case.

'The Verdict' is certainly one of the top ten most compelling legal dramas I've come across. Though Newman's final address to the jury is not quite as rousing as the equivalents in 'To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)' or 'Breaker Morant (1980),' for example, the film is held aloft by three superb veteran performances and its admirable sense of moral justice. Though the infinitely-shrewd Ed Concannon manages to convince the biased judge (Milo O'Shea) to completely disregard the damning testimony of the admitting nurse, Kaitlin Costello (Lindsay Crouse), he can't convince the honest jurors to forget what they have heard. In strict legal terms, Ed Concannon mounted the perfect case, but simple human decency directed the jury to reach a verdict that was morally just.

This one really isn't to be missed, certainly among the best of the courtroom dramas.

The acting. Well, first of all, nobody is bad. The most nearly negligible performance is by Wesley Addy, who at least looks the part of the elegant doctor and who is a competent actor. The other principals are outstanding. Charlotte Rampling with that odd face -- sultriness imposed kicking and screaming upon boniness -- is unusually good and even manages to project a kind of believable guilty remorse, which has never been her strong suit. James Mason is (almost)unflappable as Concannon, attorney for the defense. Marvelous, the way he puts quotation marks around the word "expert" while questioning the plaintiff's witness. Edward Binns is stolid as the savvy but moral bishop who wants to wrap things up without making waves. "What is the truth?", he asks Newman. Jack Warden is plumply likable, as always. He's seems to have aged more than Binns, with whom he'd worked a quarter of a century earlier in "Twelve Angry Men." Lindsay Crouse in a small but crucial role is appealingly Irish. Milo O'Shea is sliminess itself. I don't know why, perhaps his impish accent, but there is always something amusing about him, as if unable to quite shake what Erving Goffman called "role distance," the knowledge that he's playing a part accompanied by an awareness of the absurdity of doing so.

Even Bruce Willis is in this, playing a visitor to the courtroom. I was an atmosphere person in a Boston courtroom too, in "From the Hip" -- a far superior movie. (Ask anybody. Ask my mother.)

And Paul Newman is flawless. Robert Redford was supposed to play Frankie Galvin, but he wouldn't have been up to the part. The role requires the compelling anguish that Newman brings to it, and he does it perfectly. Redford is much too cool for that. I will mention just one scene of Newman's that is emblematic. He stands in his darkened office -- Warden watching soundlessly from the background -- and calls the defendants' law firm about a settlement they have already withdrawn. He paces around talking into the phone, hardly able to breathe, congested with not just mucous but self hatred, cajoling them, pounding on the desk with his knuckles, filled with an empty bravado. Redford couldn't do it. Practically nobody could do it.

Almost everything fits together perfectly in this film. Sidney Lumet opens with a shot of Newman alone in silhouette playing a pinball machine in a Boston bar, drinking beer. The pinball game serves as a token for the trajectory of his life during the course of the film. Wardrobe: first-rate. How "New England." Multi-layered dark clothing, (in Newman's case black), woolly and fussy. Sound: excellent. Little noises, hardly noticeable, form almost a background score. The old wooden floors creak when people step on them. An example of one or two good creaks: the scene in Concannon's office when he is welcoming Laura back to the law. Twirled-up telephone lines squeak when someone pulls on them. The tinkling of ice cubes in liquor glasses. The heavy breathing of nervous or defeated people. The slamming of ancient desk drawers. Garbage trucks groaning and whining in the city streets at dawn.

Production design: as good as it gets. Everything looks old, as if it has been used and lived in for years, not shabby but burnished with age, all mahogany wood and scarlet carpets. Lighting and photography: up there with the best. Most scenes are dark -- it's midwinter in Boston -- but not too dark, cleverly lighted. The snow in the streets is literally blue, as if it had just leaped out of an impressionist landscape. Tree branches glisten with moisture on slick night-time streets. Tinsel draped along a bar ceiling twinkles with fraudulent joy.

The weakness? The movie is so good I hate to mention it, but the script leaves something to be desired. It almost betrays the characters. I don't mind the legal absurdities so much. Okay, so things would never really happen this way. The judge would have to grant a continuance and so forth. It's not so much that as the motivation and the set speeches that are bothersome, especially Newman's, and they're critical. The banter and small talk are fine.

But Newman's conversion from a drunken, cynical ambulance chaser to a principled attorney of reawakened morals in the course of two-minute photo session with a comatose patient is patently unbelievable. Where did all that conscience (if that's what it is?) suddenly come from? He flops backwards as if stunned. Why? The script does its best to back up his epiphany. The images of his patient develop as a real person, not just a dollar sign, on the Polaroid photos, a mirror image of what's going on in his mind.

But as Warden repeatedly points out, his job is to win some money for his clients so they can leave their comatose sister in good care and get on with their lives in Tucson. Instead he turns down the church's offer because he sees a trial as a challenge to his personal pride, as a "means of redemption". (Is that kind of pride a mortal or a venial sin?) He loses sight of what the whole legal process is about because of this self-involvement. It wouldn't be so bad if he realized this but in fact he never gives it a thought.

Finally, Newman's summation: it sounds as if it had been put together by some high school kid whose homework assignment was to write an essay (of at least two hundred words) about "what life means to me." "I believe there is justice in our hearts," says Newman, more to himself than to the jury. No kidding.

None of this criticism can subtract from all the other virtues of the film. It's among the best of its kind.

When I first saw The Verdict back in 1983 I thought it was a gripping, thought provoking legal drama with outstanding performances by Paul Newman, James Mason, Jack Warden and Milo O'Shea. Had I written a review back then, I would have given a 9. However, I was a teenager back then with a naive and inexperienced worldview. Now 36 years later, when I went back and watched it again I really see all the flaws with the film. While the performances still are the best part of the movie, Im bothered by all the plot holes.

1 - The film drags on about Newman's drinking and ambulance chasing in funeral homes. Not enough explanation is given on how he got to this place in his life, except for a couple of brief scenes. Flashbacks to his experience standing up to corruption at his previous law firm would have pulled the story together more cohesively and garnered more sympathy and emotional connection to Newman's character, Frank Galvin. We are left to pretty much draw our own conclusions about Newman's path to this state of despair.

2. Why in the world would Frank turn down an offer of 200k and not at least consult with his clients? I'm no lawyer but how is that even possible in the real world, couldn't he lose his law license over That? That would be like me selling a house and getting an offer from a buyer but turning it down without even telling them.

3 How in the hell is that judge (O'Shea) and defense lawyer so obviously chummy that Mason got to hang up his coat in the judge's closet but Newman had to hold his coat. Are judge's supposed to be that blatantly biased, the whole thing smacked of a conflict of interest but Newman never reported him, he seemed like he was on the take from the start. Perhaps this was to make the audience feel for the corruption, the David and Goliath thing our leading man was up against.

4 If the Charlotte Rampling character was a lawyer at a firm in New York, why did she have to sleep with Paul Newman and spy on him for a $1,500 check from Mason, why not just get a job somewhere. And why did Mason pay her by check anyway so it could be traced? Why did Jack Warden put the check back in her pocketbook, why the hell wouldn't you keep it as evidence of bribery?

5 The scene where Newman punches Rampling in the face to the point she fell down and was bleeding was gratuitous and excessive even back then. That's not the first time Newman used unnecessary violence against women in his movies.

6 Newman just never convinced me he was a great lawyer throughout the entire movie, if anything, Mason was a legal scholar. Either you use the law to help your client or you do something else for a living, go work in a homeless shelter. The ending was just 12 jurors decided to do the right thing even tho legally they weren't supposed to consider the surprise witness. That's great Hollywood but it doesn't make Newman the terrific lawyer who lost his way which is the premise of the whole movie.

Movies are about suspension of disbelief and a lot of viewers may feel differently when watching but this movie didnt age well, for me anyway.

Paul Newman plays Frank Galvin, an alcoholic lawyer whose legal career is in shambles. When a routine malpractice case is thrown his way, Frank gets one last chance to prove himself. Initially he simply goes through the motions, but when he meets the victim, a young woman who has suffered complications during childbirth and is now reduced to a permanently comatose state, he approaches the case with newfound resolve.

Rejecting a Catholic hospital's offer of a financial settlement, Frank decides to take the case to court. Here he battles both for his client's rights and for his own dignity.

Three big names elevate the film: David Mamet, Paul Newman and Sidney Lumet. Newman gives a great performance and the film is littered with 3 or 4 amazingly acted scenes, all of which play on Frank's sense of shame. Meanwhile, David Mamet provides a suspenseful screenplay, which somehow manages to lift itself above the clichés. Finally, Lumet's direction is beautifully low key. The film is slow during its first half hour, but things quickly pick up pace.

8/10 - Not as good as Lumet's "12 Angry Men" or "The Pawnbroker", but still an excellent courtroom movie. The film has no fancy pyrotechnics, courtroom standoffs, set pieces or monologues, relying instead on quiet dialogue. The film benefits from a familiarity with some of Newman's younger roles.

Worth one viewing.

The Verdict (1982)

Top 3 - 1982

The Verdict, another excellent achievement for the magnificent Sidney Lumet (12 Angry Men) is the kind of film that shakes the insides, makes you think and consider things such as truth, morality, redemption and justice. Lumet does the same thing he does with 12 Angry Men in this film, he simply, without any tricks or fancy work expose us to the flaws of the law and justice, and how the rich nearly always gain the upper hand, but not always as this film shows. As Frank Galvin (Newman) says the court gives the poor and powerless a chance and sometimes they can walk out with something.

Paul Newman proves in 'The Verdict' why his name stands amongst the Hollywood elite; his performance is truly magnificent. He plays a drunk, divorced, washed up Boston lawyer with a losing streak who gets a second chance to redeem himself. His boss/partner brings him a case so easy to settle out of court that he could make a bunch of money and not worry about a thing; about a Boston Catholic Hospital who administered the wrong anaesthetic to a young woman and destroyed her life; she is in a coma; deprived of speech, sound and vision. Galvin visits the Catholic bishop in relation to St. Catherine's hospital for a quick settlement, but on his way there he goes to see the girl; he sees the pain, destruction of a life... Galvin rejects $210,000 ($70,000) which would go straight in his pockets. Why? He can't be paid off to look the other way while a girl is paralysed and dying on a hospital bed. He takes them to court, despite disbelief from both the opposition and the judge himself.

The story follows, as the powerful, defence attorney team rattle Newman's cage, through a variety of ways, leaving him with no ideas; but he fights, he does not surrender, he has a truth to fight for, he wants real justice, he wants redemption, and he gets it eventually... He wins the case not on masterful inquisitiveness of the law, but working as a decent human being relying on the humanity of the jurors to see beyond all the smoke and mirrors of the defence...

The Verdict has great qualities; its the kind of film that is cathartic, satisfying while entertaining and superbly acted.

9/10

Although Paul Newman has received MANY accolades for his acting, this movie, to me, stands out as the best of all his many wonderful performances. Newman plays an alcoholic has-been lawyer who has pretty much given up on making a difference. He is an "ambulance chaser" whose only goal is to arrange a quick settlement--regardless of whether or not his clients deserve more or nothing at all (a "nuisance lawyer"). He plays this role exceptionally well and the writing and directing much also be credited.

Out of the blue, he takes a case where the client has a really good case and deserves a very large judgment. However, Newman is planning on just making a quick settlement regardless of whether or not it was fair for anyone. However, over time, for once, he has a hard time living with himself and eventually decides to fight. However, the archdiocese being sued hires a team of top-rate lawyers and Newman finally refuses to back down and take a settlement.

You MUST watch this movie!!!

No doubt the performances would have been potent in it's original day but the film still draws you in and you believe in the flaws and vulnerabilities of Paul et al, right to the end, with exception of the very last scenes, as the unanswered phone call was a non believable false cliff hanger after everything, was a bit flat and non sequitur to the court outcome where the film delivered the victory against all the odds.