With Sunday’s premiere of The Firm, Josh Lucas joined the ranks of film actors who have moved into television. The two-hour start proved that Lucas is a capable small-screen leading man, that there is space for another legal drama, and that even after a novel and a film adaptation, there’s still mileage in the life of Mitch McDeere.
The idealistic criminal defense attorney is a good fit for Lucas, who proved in the 2006 basketball flick Glory Road that he can expertly portray someone with the courage of their convictions and give an impassioned speech with the best of them. He was called upon to do both as Mitch juggled a hefty to-do list that includes emerging from witness protection after a decade, defending a middle schooler who killed a classmate, a potentially massive lawsuit, a twentysomething girl accused of murdering an elderly woman, and keeping afloat the struggling firm he started just six months earlier with his ex-con brother and his brother’s girlfriend. All that requires a hero we can not only root for, but trust to help us make sense of all that, and Mitch is definitely that man.
That’s a lot of balls to put into the air at the beginning of a new TV series, but The Firm did a generally good job of keeping them all straight, with equal time devoted to Mitch’s case of the week (the middle school killing), the audience getting to know him and his loved ones, plus a tantalizing bit of drama that surrounded him before and soon will again (most of which was given away in the show’s promos). The conspiracy-slash-mob bit was fine, but I found myself more interested in the case, which was people-driven and showed that Mitch really is good enough for people to be so concerned about him. Now that I care about his character, I’m willing to go along for the rest of the ride.
Mitch is surrounded by a quirky supporting cast: his wife Abby (Molly Parker), who is treated more like his equal than his spouse; their ten-year-old daughter Claire; his ex-con brother Ray (a scene-stealing Callum Keith Rennie); and Ray’s longtime girlfriend Tammy (Juliette Lewis). This is certainly one unique family and I’m looking forward to getting to know them.
The same can’t quite be said for the purported bad guys, Mitch’s new boss Alex Clark (Tricia Helfer) and her employee/Mitch’s basketball buddy Andrew (Shaun Majumder); other than my suspicion that Andrew became friends with Mitch purely to lure him to the firm, I’m really not interested in either of them as individuals. All I need to know is that six weeks after the premiere, their client meets Mitch in a hotel room about the death of a woman (the elderly woman?), and proceeds to commit suicide by jumping off the balcony.
I’m not so concerned with them and their doings just yet, though. I’m willing to let those develop in their own time, because I was genuinely interested in the middle school killing, and how the case affected everyone involved, from the defendant and his father to the victim’s parents. It was less about the legal proceedings than it was about the people, and their thoughts and feelings, and that is what I’m most interested in as a TV viewer. If Mitch continues to work on cases where I can be moved by him, his family, and his clients, I’ll keep tuning in; the unfolding of whatever conspiracy may be involved, and if it’s related to the crime family Mitch helped bring down ten years ago, will just be an added bonus.
I have to admit that I’ve never read the John Grisham novel, and only seen a few minutes of the Tom Cruise film, but I’m actually glad for that, because it allowed me to evaluate The Firm by itself. While I believe that the previous versions should be respected, I also believe that the TV show has to be taken on its own merits. Unlike the movie, it’s not adapting the same story. It’s telling a separate one in a separate medium, not unlike Buffy The Vampire Slayer did. I’m not saying that The Firm is going to be the next cult hit, but it is a promising legal drama thus far, and I hope that it’s given a fair chance.
I don’t want to get too excited about it, because let’s be fair, we’re talking about the first two episodes; this is the time when a show is just starting and still trying to find what it’s going to be. Yet I see a chance here for a solid legal thriller with a capable leading man and unique supporting cast. I’m following The Firm to its regular day and time this Thursday at 10, and I’d encourage you to do the same.
Clacked by Brittany Frederick 
on Jan 09, 2012 @ 04:42 EST5EDT
I wish I had the same reaction as you did. For me, The Firm was a big bucket of “meh.” Not bad, but certainly nothing that jumped out at me in a “I need to put this on my schedule” kind of way. The only thing that I really enjoyed about it was CKR’s Ray.
Of all of the procedural stapes, I’m most likely to get into a Lawyer show, but even those portions of the pilot fell flat for me.
FWIW, though, having seen the movie and read the novel several years ago they had no impact on the show. Sure, there was some distant history that was a part of the backstory, but the portion of the character’s history that seems to drive the show the most is the 10 years in witness protection (Which again I find most interesting when looking at Ray and Tammy), which wasn’t a part of the novel/movie.
*POST AUTHOR*
That’s good to know. I bought the novel (although then they gave out copies at TCA…d’oh), but I’ve just been too swamped to even crack it. It’s on my to-do list.
My one concern with the show is that I better start having some sort of feeling toward the ‘bad guys.’ A good hero needs good competition, and right now I’m getting that kind of ‘meh’ feeling with them. Is it me or has Tricia Helfer been playing essentially the same type a lot post-BSG? I didn’t see much difference between her here and her performance in Lie To Me, or Dark Blue.
I don’t even remember who/what she played in LtM, but I didn’t watch Dark Blue, and stopped watching Burn Notice during her run.
It’s funny, especially considering your comments in the (soon to be posted) Leverage group post, about good heroes “needing competition.”
*POST AUTHOR*
Oh, I still stand by those comments. The difference with The Firm right now is that I was interested enough in the legal story that these ‘bad guys’ didn’t seem quite as glaring. But make no mistake about it, they do need to be more developed. I’m just biting my tongue a bit considering that we’re discussing only the first two episodes. I’m not expecting the whole three-course meal when we’re on the appetizer.