A $40 million legal thriller is the sort of movie that comes along all the time, but 2011’s The Lincoln Lawyer remains an important milestone in modern cinema for marking the genesis of the McConaissance, which ultimately reinvented and rehabilitated Matthew McConaughey from shirtless rom-com stud to Academy Award-winning thespian.
There was talk of a sequel in the aftermath, but things never came together, although fret not: The Lincoln Lawyer will be back on our screens on May 13 as an episodic Netflix original series having migrated over from CBS, with Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as Mickey Haller. Small screen veteran David E. Kelly is spearheading the project from behind the scenes, and his track record means the show could be worth your time.
As the title implies, Haller runs his legal practice from the backseat of the titular automobile, traveling across Los Angeles to take on cases both big and small. Neve Campbell plays his ex-wife and district attorney Maggie McPherson, with Becki Newton, Jazz Raycole, Angus Sampson, and Christopher Gorham rounding out the main cast.
While the trailer doesn’t promise anything you haven’t seen before a hundred times over, the glossy legal thriller is a perennially popular TV subgenre for a reason. The Lincoln Lawyer is seeking to fill a gap in the market, given that Netflix don’t have too many buzzy in-house exclusives that fit a similar bill, so it could turn out to be a sizeable success for the platform when it premieres in exactly one month from today.