From my favorite movies..

Expected more

Absolutely Fantastic

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

After giving poor reviews for some of the recent hollywood movies (Annihilation, Black Panther), this is a movie with real characters who change over time, and an interesting story with excellent plot twists.And kudos to the director. The two most pivotal scenes in this movie have no dialog, no words at all. It's all done with eyes and body language. Remarkable.

The Verdict: I sigh in awe...The Verdict deserves to be treated as something very special. Dont watch it as a popcorn movie just to be entertained. Save this subtle movie for a rainy day, when you are in a melancholic mood, because The Verdict will definitely lift your spirits up, but in an unexpected twisted way, like in real life with all its contradicting emotions.There is no big drama right in your face. This story sneaks up on you, in a subtle clever way. The Verdict is a story about a drunk who has hit rockbottom. That may sound depressing, but on the contrary, everything about this movie oozes refinement: the story, the photography, the acting, the soundtrack, all are magnificent. The Verdict levetates way beyond just a good quality movie. Sidney Lumet treats us viewers with something only a great director can do: he talks to us when nothing is being said. He uses silence in scenes as an emotion.The magnificent photography and the subtle but excellent acting in The Verdict are beyond any other courtdrama, and even beyond any other regular movie.. The photography and the acting are meticulous yet so natural, slow in tempo yet so serene and vivid simultaneously. Watching The Verdict often feels like seeing paintings come alive... Many scenes in The Verdict reach their climax without words being spoken. There are moments of silence everywhere. Even the very end of the movie fades out without one word being said but at the same time that silence is covering emotions so heartwrenging and glorious that I sigh in awe...

After a brush with disbarment, attorney Frank Galvin (Newman) now resorts to chasing ambulances and attending funerals to feed his booze habit. A meager law office, an aging mentor (Jack Warden) and the pinball machine at the local bar are all he has when he decides to make a lifestyle change. With his client in a coma and little hope of ever recovering, Galvin decides to reject a sizable payout from the Catholic Hospital that put her there and takes them to court in a high profile malpractice case.The 57-year-old Newman looks a far cry from his typical on screen self. His ratty suit and near constant stubble fit the hard-drinking Galvin, who frequently stumbles to the bar before lunch for a quick hangover cure. While his actions spiral him deeper and deeper out of control, the actor's steely blue eyes pierce through the character's rough exterior giving the audience hope for his redemption.As Galvin turns from the bottle and throws himself into the case, he begins to see the client as a person instead of a payday. Even as every tactic he throws at the jury is shot down by the Hospital's high powered attorney (Mason), he never loses hope. While the Catholic Church is at times depicted as the villain or at least a corporate entity, faith becomes the overwhelming theme of the film.The Verdict garnered five Oscar nominations, including only the second in Newman's long career. Though he would again lose out on the award, he would reinvent himself by proving he could still step out of his comfort zone as an actor.There is no real hero in this courtroom drama that relies more on emotional draw than actual evidence. Even though sometimes the leaps of the faith the plot takes are a little hard to believe, any fan of Newman will be a fan of The Verdict.

When The Verdict, a courtroom drama directed by Sidney Lumet, came out in 1982, I had just graduated nursing school. The Verdict features Paul Newman and was written by David Mamet. This film has a medical context and a nursing role.A word about Sidney Lumet. Lumet directs quality movies about medico-legal, substance abuse and cultural issues. For instance, in Equus the plot is about a psychiatrist treating a boy who blinds a stable full of horses. Lumet also directed Long Day's Journey into the Night which is Eugene O'Neill's autobiographical account of his explosive home life, fueled by a substance abusing mother, an alcoholic father and a mentally ill brother. Dog Day Afternoon is about a gay man who robs a bank to pay for his lover's sex change operation. The simple robbery turns in to a hostage situation and a media circus. Critical Care, a medical "comedy", is about a young hospital resident embroiled in a legal battle with siblings over the care of their rich, comatose father. The resident has a supervisor who insists that he only care for patients with full insurance. Finally, 12 Angry Men, another courtroom drama is about a young Hispanic male who is accused of murdering his father but the story really is about jurors' prejudices about the trial, their biases about the accused and each other.The Verdict depicts a once successful, now down-and-out lawyer who sees his career turning around when he accepts a medical malpractice case and refuses to settle rather than going to trial.Kaitlin Costello Price, Mamet's wife in real life by Lindsay Crouse, is a nurse who was involved in the pre-surgical care of the comatose patient. The long and short of her story is that she had to leave nursing because the surgeons told her to change a patient's record who had eaten an hour before the operation so they could use general anesthesia. If she did not falsify the record, she would never work as a nurse again. She doesn't.Her words echo in my mind to this day "Who were these men? Who were these men? I wanted to be a nurse"!Some racial profiling and sexual bias goes on here. A black doctor is brought in to testify and Newman treats him shabbily.Jack Warden called him a "witch doctor". Additionally, there was a seen where Newman punched his girlfriend for lying to him and she thinks she deserves it.