Lincoln Lawyer’ is a bit of Grisham Lite

Sometimes I hate computers. I had just started writing a blog post for the new legal thriller “The Lincoln Lawyer” when, poof, my copy disappeared. Just … that … fast.

But, hey, so what? It’s not like my prose is golden, or that the movie is something John Grisham would spend time viewing. Though when it comes to Grisham anymore, you just never know. When was the last time he wrote anything worth reading?

Anyway, let’s start over. “The Lincoln Lawyer” stars Matthew McConaughey as L.A. criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller, the protagonist of a fairly new series of crime novels by best-selling writer Michael Connelly. Approached to defend a young man (Ryan Philippe) accused of rape and attempted murder, Haller sees dollar signs in his future. Multiple dollar signs, in fact, because the young man is the son of a wealthy real-estate agent (Frances Fisher).

And even given the recent housing slump, do you know what houses go for in certain sections of L.A.?

Haller needs the money because he has two ex-wives (one played by Marisa Tomei), a pre-teen daughter, four Lincoln Town Cars that he uses (one at a time) as his traveling office, a driver and an investigator, and a house with a view of L.A. that even movie stars would envy. Just making the mortgage paymnets has Haller in perpetual hock.

Anyway, the case is hardly open-and-shut. Pretty soon Haller begins to distrust his client and, at the same time, he begins to question whether he did the right thing in convincing a former client to plead guilty to a crime (rape, murder) that he may not have committed.

Yeah, yeah. If such stories interest you, then you might want to catch “The Lincoln Lawyer.” While Connelly isn’t likely ever to write a book as gripping as, say, Grisham’s “The Firm” or “The Pelican Brief,” his Haller is a perfect role for McConaughey, whose smoothness gives the film a kind of energy that propels it forward even when Haller’s legal shenanigans grow more than a little farfetched.

Then again, you might just want to go and rent one of Grisham’s older movies, such as either of the ones above. Better yet, go and read one of his early novels.

These days even Grisham isn’t what he once was. But at least he once was the real thing, instead of, ummm, Grisham Lite.