12/08/2010

Freshly out of the Faculty of Law, recent graduate Léo (played regrettably by a somewhat older Benoît Magimel) is intent on becoming a criminal lawyer. But when he is hired by a cabinet owned by his mentor (played by Barbet Schroeder), he soon realises that the routine – rising through the ranks and ‘lost lawsuits’ – is the contrary of how much he expected from the trade. And as long as he sticks to legal principles and technicalities, he won’t be able to convince legally troubled businessman Paul Vanoni (Gilbert Melki), when Léo is entrusted with the protection of his affairs.

What better way to shoot to the top? The doubt lasts briefly: the more persuasive the handsome fee, the more convincing the 300m2 house where he moves to with his beautiful pregnant fiancée (Aïssa Maïga) and the more intoxicating the scent of success. But then things turn complicated, when we find out that all this money is coloured with blood. Take two fires, the client’s boss of the eco-mafia (here at Locarno, the Italian press has troubled Gomorra [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Domenico Procacci
interview: Jean Labadie
interview: Matteo Garrone
film profile]) and the police which use him as a pawn, Léo is forced to choose between leaving or staying, while around him more and more are being shot and stabbed.

Consciences in crisis and moral crossroads are abundant in the Court of Law (first and foremost from the ones in films like The Devil’s Advocate), and the script is more or less always the same. The hitch is that we are not heading in the right direction, and this time the audience guesses it right from the first scene, where Léo is being transported to hospital in an ambulance with the sirens blaring.

Given Cédric Anger’s meagre track record (this is the second feature of the ex-critic of “Cahiers” since The Killer [+see also:
trailer
film profile]), it is difficult to tell if the narrative voice that recounts the tale of The Counsel [+see also:
trailer
film profile] knows whether or not Léo will survive, like in Sunset Blvd.. Rather it us up to us to resolve the doubt, which is the only motive of suspense in a legal thriller which runs predictably for 100 minutes, on the rails of a genre that Hollywood could do better.

After its world preview screening in Piazza Grande at Locarno, film – a Sunrise Films production, supported by the CNC, Canal + and the Languedoc-Roussillon region – hits French screens in January 2011 where it is being distributed by Société Nouvelle de Distribution – SND.

(Translated from Italian)