This is a solid legal film with strong minds opposing each other. Anthony Hopkins has that Hannibal Lecter gleam in his eye, and Ryan Josling is the uppity young lawyer desperately in need of a stiff dose of humility.
Josling has just landed a million-dollar job at a hugely profitable law firm with spectacular offices, powerful clients, and a six-figure salary. What crack lawyer in his right mind could possibly turn that down?
Hopkins, a world-class aerospace engineer, has a ten-figure mansion on the bay, a seven-figure car, and a fiendish mind. Ryan worked his way through law school and tricked his way into a junior partnership at the big law firm.
The contrast between the rich and privileged is graphic here. It’s far more realistic than all the TV law shows, where the public defender’s offices are usually as fancy as the major law firms they fight on the other side of the bench.
In this film, its clearly the rich — both in the persona of the diabolical Hopkins and the privileged law firms who defend filthy rich people like him — and the lowly district attorney, with a shoestring budget and a second class staff.
DA’s typically operate on a volume scale: The more convictions, the better the public likes them. The scales of justice are already balanced in favor of the rich, against whom cases are far more costly and risky.
The rich can pay unlimited attorney’s fees, the DA is on a very modest budget. The rich have no public, the DA has to justify everything at election time.
The current economic situation in the U.S. will only exacerbate this situation. Law enforcement budgets are being cut back from the county to the state to the federal level. While the rich got a 60% pay raise over the course of this long recession.
If Lady Justice’s scales were tipped in favor of the rich before this recession, they’re soon to be even more so. The only thing standing in the way are bright young lawyers with too much arrogance, alcoholic police detectives, and beautiful partners at prestigious law firms.
On a personal note, I’m an engineer, and I must say I’ve never, ever seen an engineer who makes as much money as Anthony Hopkin’s character. The big boss at the largest consulting firm I worked for drove a twenty year old pickup, not a Maserati.
The owner of another firm I worked for had a stack of parking tickets on her desk because she couldn’t afford a private parking garage rates.
In the engineering business, it’s the lawyers who get all the money.
We pay them exorbitant fees to defend us against frivolous law suits, to buy peace of mind so we can do our work.
Of course, the same applies to every other profession as well — doctors, architects, dentists, realtors, you name it. What a racket.
