A solid cast is building around the once delayed legal thriller “The Lincoln Lawyer.” Originally set to shoot last year with Tommy Lee Jones in the director’s chair, the project stalled when Jones left the production citing “creative differences.” With Matthew McConaughey still set to star, the project seemed to come back to life last week when Marisa Tomei joined the cast and now it looks like things are roaring forward.
Ryan Phillippe, William H. Macy, Michael Pena, Trace Adkins and Katherine Moennig have all joined the cast of the picture that is now set to shoot in July. The film ” revolves around moderately successful criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller, who operates out of the backseat of his Lincoln Town Car. Haller has spent most of his career defending garden-variety criminals, until he lands the case of a lifetime: Representing a Beverly Hills playboy accused of murder. The case, however, turns into a deadly game of survival for Haller.”
Despite the solid cast, we’re a little wary of this one as it sounds like the kind of movie Ashley Judd made over-and-over for a while there. This feeling certainly isn’t helped that Tommy Lee Jones’ replacement is Brad Furman whose only feature credit was the pretty much straight-to-dvd crime drama “The Take” with John Leguizamo and Tyrese Gibson. Not to mention that John Romano (“Nights In Rodanthe,” “Intolerable Cruelty”) penned the screenplay. Let’s hope working with a higher shelf cast will elevate both Furman’s and Romano’s game.