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Lincoln Lawyer Avoids A Major Problem With Cop Shows
Warning: Contains spoilers for The Lincoln Lawyer season 1.
In The Lincoln Lawyer adaptation, Netflix has found a solution to a major problem with cop shows. The Lincoln Lawyer was originally adapted from Michael Connelly’s 2005 novel of the same name in a 2011 movie starring Matthew McConaughey. This time around, the Netflix adaptation focuses on the second novel in the series, The Brass Verdict, and focuses on different aspects of Michael “Mickey” Haller.
Cop shows, both fictional series and reality shows, have always had an issue with glorifying the police. Nicknamed “copaganda” such depictions tend to suggest that the police always catch criminals and do so fully within the confines of the rules of their position, and that any cases that fall outside of that situation, such as corrupt officers, are a rare exception. However, these shows were put under a microscope after the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 brought the issues with the United States police system into the mainstream.
With a cultural distaste for cop shows that glorify the police, The Lincoln Lawyer provides Netflix with the perfect fix for the situation. As Mickey Haller (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) is a defense attorney, not a police officer, he comes at cases from a very different viewpoint. Haller’s job is not to catch the guilty person, but to ensure that justice is served according to the rules that were laid out. Both in the books and on-screen, The Lincoln Lawyer is concerned with ensuring that all the facts are considered before a verdict is issued. While this doesn’t necessarily address the larger issues with a punitive judicial system, it does at least acknowledge that people have rights that are not subject to a TV police officer’s whim.
Not only does The Lincoln Lawyer use Haller’s perspective as a criminal defense lawyer to provide another perspective on the justice system, it also manages to critique that system, including the police force. Haller’s sparring with his ex-wife, Maggie McPherson (Neve Campbell) helps to establish the purpose and pros and cons of both the defense and prosecution. Meanwhile, his relationship to officers like Detective Griggs (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine) and Detective Lankford (Jamie McShane) shows how they can be underhanded or corrupt even if their intentions might seem positive overall.
Netflix’s Lincoln Lawyer Also Improves The LGBTQ+ Representation
As well as finding a way to still tell a compelling mystery around the legal system without running afoul of being “copaganda,” The Lincoln Lawyer adaptation also improved other aspects of the genre’s representation. This might be expected in 2022, but would have been easy to ignore. The Netflix adaptation removed the character of Patrick Henson and replaced him with Izzy Letts (Jazz Raycole), and woman who is incidentally LGBTQ+ in a way that marks queer identities as an expected part of everyday life. While the 2005 The Lincoln Lawyer novel included a gay character, some characters were upset to find out about his sexuality, and Connelly included slurs in both The Lincoln Lawyer and The Brass Verdict (although they were contextualized) and the first book also hit the “burying your gays” trope.
The Lincoln Lawyer Focused On The Right Parts Of The Story
The Black Lives Matter protests were a big part in pushing cop shows out of common entertainment that was digested uncritically because of the imbalances in how policing is implemented across racial lines. While Michael Connelly’s books have a diverse cast of characters that could have shows this, the 2011 The Lincoln Lawyer adaptation whitewashed some of the characters. Most notably Raul Levin became Frank Levin, played by William H. Macy.
Netflix’s The Lincoln Lawyer avoids any of this while adding a better range of diverse actors across the board. Not only are Izzy Letts and Detective Griggs (the detective that replaces Harry Bosch’s character from the book) people of color, but the portrayal of Mickey Haller himself is an improvement from the movie. In the books, Mickey Haller is half American-Irish and half Mexican, with the book noting his Latino appearance. While the movie replaced this with Matthew McConaughey and the book itself leaned more into his Irish heritage than his Mexican, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo’s portrayal of the character and his family is able to be more authentic. All of this means that the cast and the story are in a better position to be critiquing some of the biggest issues with cop shows. Crucially, Netflix’s The Lincoln Lawyer doesn’t stand on a soapbox to make its point, it is a subtle inclusion into a story that is otherwise just a fun mystery.
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