Louisiana defense lawyer Lawson Russell (Cuba Gooding Jr.) deliberately causes a mistrial in the trial of Thurman Parks III (Eric Stoltz). He gets disbarred and wants to write a book better than John Grisham. After 13 months in the Florida Keys, he has done a lot of drinking as a fishing tour guide. He's hired by a strange old man named Marlow. Marlow dies and Lawson keeps his manuscript. Lawson claims the book as his own and it becomes a best seller. Thurman is acquitted. Police detective Clifford Dubose (Tom Berenger) is investigating the real murders of five lawyers that is exactly as written in the book. He hires his old colleague Elizabeth Pope as his defense lawyer.
I really like the premise. Cuba doesn't necessarily play the everyman character. He's too brash and could be seen as bringing this on himself. Nevertheless, there is a hard-boiled sense to this mystery except for Marlow and the other false identities. The makeup jobs look bad. They look like Halloween costumes and make the movie look cheesy. Eric Stoltz sounds awful in a southern accent. I don't know if the accent is accurate. Hollywood kid Stoltz is not the guy to do the accent. The movie needs to bring on a better makeup artist and somebody else to take on Stoltz's character.
I really like the premise. Cuba doesn't necessarily play the everyman character. He's too brash and could be seen as bringing this on himself. Nevertheless, there is a hard-boiled sense to this mystery except for Marlow and the other false identities. The makeup jobs look bad. They look like Halloween costumes and make the movie look cheesy. Eric Stoltz sounds awful in a southern accent. I don't know if the accent is accurate. Hollywood kid Stoltz is not the guy to do the accent. The movie needs to bring on a better makeup artist and somebody else to take on Stoltz's character.