The Verdict (1982)

On the rare occasions that I watch a movie again, I usually don't bother to review it here. But this was a still rarer occasion: I had basically no memory of it. Only the ending even remotely rang a bell. Good thing I remembered enjoying it years ago.

Frank Galvin (late-middle-aged Paul Newman), a discredited lawyer who spends more time on drinking and pinball than cases, finally gets a good opportunity via a friend (Jack Warden). A hospital has left a woman comatose, allegedly through an anesthetic procedure botched by negligence. Everyone, including Frank, expects him to accept on the family's behalf a pretty generous settlement; but after seeing the patient himself, he decides he'd rather try to expose their malpractice. This is not easy, because the doctors and their lawyers are far more renowned -- and can fight dirty.

I think one key reason for my previously poor memory has to do with the ratio of dialog to action. You may anticipate as much from a courtroom drama and perhaps especially from a script by David Mamet. It doesn't have any highly quotable lines, if only because it's probably aiming for credibility.

Which it has in my book. If nothing else, it helps raise awareness of some of the things that potentially could go on in a court and behind the scenes. You know the saying about laws and sausages? It could be expanded to related applications.

I got a little confused by some statements that made it sound like the patient was dead. We don't even know for sure that she won't wake up. But I suppose that in all likelihood, with as much brain damage as it took for this to happen, she'll never be nearly the same again.

In case it matters to you, the hospital in question is Catholic. The Archdiocese of Boston winds up looking about as crooked as it does in Spotlight. Somehow, that didn't really bother me on either viewing, perhaps because it doesn't point to a corruption any wider in scope.

I like to credit Sidney Lumet for a fair chunk of the film's solidness. It came 25 years after his silver screen starting smash, 12 Angry Men, and 25 years before his last hit, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, but he's easy to think of as a "Silver Age" director. When we talk about '80s movies, dramas rarely come up, but this feels like perhaps a last hurrah of the smart, dark and brooding era.

Courtroom dramas have a good track record with me. This one doesn't make my top five, but it was well worth my time -- twice as needed.