Turow Keeps Court Drama Spellbinding
“Pleading Guilty” will have you pleading for more. In any satisfying legal thriller, there must be a sense of moral ambiguity or ongoing dread. A proposition that must be as keenly stated as a prosecutor hell-bent on wiping his shady opposition’s face in the mud.
It’s an air of Gothic and inescapable obscurity that clings to his mind like a caramel corn does to the roof of one’s mouth, while wallowing in and nearly bursting with the questions: What fuels the fire that burns deep inside the defendant? Is it lust? Is it fear? Is it an intolerable craving for bloodshed, thrust upon a devious mind? Or, is it ultimately the wanton motivation of recognition that exists in this tangled and troubled soul?
Such an atmosphere is conveyed in Scott Turow’s courtroom drama “Pleading Guilty.”
He creates intriguing characters infused in a plot that echoes elements from both John Grisham’s “The Firm” and Billy Wilder’s 1944 film noir classic “Double Indemnity.” Turow has fashioned an intricate and perceptive study of corruption, litigation and an eventual pinnacle of candor that is imparted in such a feverish apex that it’s almost devilish in its accuracy.
The narrative is the standpoint of a street-smart beat-cop-turned-triallawyer Mack Malloy, who is an appealing cross between Marty and Frank Bullitt. He relays his plight, by means of a Dictaphone, to his beloved, deceased sister named Elaine.
He informs her that the Management Oversight Committee of his firm G&G (Gage and Griswell) had assigned him to locate his partner Bert Kamin, who has embezzled millions of dollars from one of their most valued clients (Trans National Airlines) and used the money in what he justified as “Litigation Support” for a company called Litiplex. To further enhance his befuddlement, Malloy is told that his rival conglomerate does not exist.
Malloy emerges as a very convincing and likeable protagonist despite his banal gruffness and mournful idiosyncrasies. His colorful bantering with the other characters - notably his intuitive and winsome so-called girlfriend Emilia “Brushy” Bruccia and his rebellious son Lyle is so captivatingly ribald and delectable that you almost forget Mack is nothing more than a loud, overweight jerk. Detective Andy Sipowicz he is not.
Often Turow’s approach to Malloy’s egotistical tendencies is kept to a minimum, giving him a more casual aura, and the rapport between Bushy and Malloy is engaging. We never learn much about Bushy’s background or her motives. She simply seems to serve as a metaphor for the frenzied culmination of uneasiness and disdainfulness.
In recent years it seems every potboiler copped the attitude: Why cart one off to the state penitentiary when you could have the whole damn lot? In “Pleading Guilty” every character from the detective investigating the crime to the CEO is found guilty of one crime or another. With the deliciously inconsistent presumptions and “You’re not making a bit of sense” attitude, the requisite impending dread and rescue of immobilized lives is conceded with about as much effectiveness as Keanu Reeves achieved in adopting an English accent.
Presumably, the outcome is wan and muddled, but Turow has fashioned a riveting and engrossing piece that will give second-rate contenders like John Grisham an attempt at a rebuttal. Motion denied.