I’ve been a big fan of Sydney Lumet ever since I saw 12 Angry Men many years ago. Ever since I have gravitated towards his work. Dog Day Afternoon is another of his great films which came out in the 70s, my favorite decade of films. The Verdict is a film with 70s aesthetics to it, it’s on a level all its own though. Lumet tapped into something different with this film than he has done before in his career but he has had success with courtroom dramas. As the aforementioned 12 Angry Men. He knows what he needs to do to pull the heartstrings with this genre.

Frank Galvin (Paul Newman) is a down-on-his-luck attorney from Boston, Mass who can’t get anything to go straight in his life or with his struggling law practice. Even his trusty PI Mickey Morrisey (Jack Warden) is mad at him. He has given him a case that is a sure winner but all he does is drink his way to the bottom of a bottle and wallow in his self-pity. When he finally realizes this is his last chance he gets going to start to prepare a defense for this couple and their dying sister.

Paul Newman has been in a lot of great films in his career The Hustler, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy, and the Sundance Kid among others. He has done it all in his long and storied career. The character he plays in this film is the best of them all. He brings everything he has acquired in his career before this to this character. As a lawyer, he uses popular tricks but like all stories, the clues are in here for him to use as bullets in his arsenal. As it’s a David Mamet script it took Lumet to bring it out of him and it was a good thing he did. Newman gives the best performance of his career.

Courtroom dramas are one of my favorite genres of film bar none. They are a genre in which audiences can get behind the story and a lot of the time courtroom antics can play into that. Lawyers’ tricks and finding things and people who come out of the woodwork are part of what makes these movies such fan-friendly films. This film uses everything that movies like this have used before. It follows popular tropes, such as a biased judge, but does it in a great way. All the courtroom dramas after this have copied it. It’s one of the best there ever was in this genre.

When I mentioned that this movie was like a 70s film it’s because it has a similar look and feel as a 70s film. It’s the last vestige of a great decade of film. Where men and women struggled. Things weren’t great for anybody. It has a gritty style similar to those movies of the 70s. How it was filmed was with a lot of close-ups and the weather of Boston at this time shows how dark and dank this time is for Newman’s character. The sets and locations are dirty and grimy and the courtrooms and the bars and places like that add to the dark element of the story. It all comes together for Lumet, Newman, and company.

Lumet doesn’t have a huge cast with this film but he relies on a couple of 12 Angry Men actors in supporting roles, Jack Warden and Edward Binns respectively, as well as Oscar nominee Charlotte Rampling (45 Years), who plays Newman’s character’s girlfriend, and James Mason (North by Northwest) as the opposing attorney Ed Concannon. This cast brings it in this edge-of-your-seat courtroom drama. It’s one of the main reasons this movie is so great and deserved more awards than it got in 1983 for the calendar year of 1982.

The Verdict is a great film for many reasons but a few of them are the writing by Mamet, direction from Lumet, and the Academy Award-worthy performance from one of the greatest actors of his generation Paul Newman. He brings everything at his disposal as an actor to this role. The supporting cast is terrific as well. As far as the courtroom drama goes this one has it all and many films after this have copied it. It takes twists and turns nobody saw coming and has obstacles that are similar to tropes of this genre for many years to come. It’s a forebear of courtroom  dramas for decades afterwards. It’s just a great film no matter how you look at it by anybody’s standards.

5 stars

Dan Skip Allen