Much like the luxury car of its title, The Lincoln Lawyer is a smooth ride. So seductive are the film’s surface charms that it’s easy to forgive the protagonist for being, as one character succinctly calls him, an asshole.

But that’s a trait common to many a movie hero, so why quibble? Akin to the private dicks of film noir, Matthew McConaughey’s Mick Haller is smug, smooth talking and not above making a few shady deals. He’s also not averse to dispensing vigilante justice, lying to a judge and doing business with lowlifes if it means more green in his bank account. And much like those same detectives whose line of work frequently forces them to confront the darker aspects of humanity, Haller takes to the bottle when he realizes circumstances are far worse than they once appeared.

Having the hero toss back the amber liquid is a familiar but effective film noir trope, a storyteller’s shorthand for affirming a character’s conscience and resetting his moral compass to true north. Small wonder about the noirish aspects of The Lincoln Lawyer, as it was based on the best-seller by Michael Connelly, an author whose detective fiction has earned comparisons to that of Raymond Chandler.

This article appears in Mar 17-23, 2011.