Okay, as somebody who has spent more time in a courtroom the last dozen+ years and has taught semesters of criminal law, criminal procedure, and ethics in criminal justice (where I used a number of these films as learning tools or conversation starters), I've been waiting to fully weigh in. But, with us at the final four (and with at least one of the matchups being incredibly close), here goes:
General commentary:
1. No disrespect to the OP who has done a great job of organizing this and staying on top of it, this tournament really needed A Time to Kill. The concepts of the power of the state v. the solo defense attorney overmatched, jury nullification, how to make a good opening/closing argument, stare decisis, the unreasonable client, and impeachment are really well represented in that movie. I wish the movie would have been included and I'd have pushed for it to make the elite 8. The OP describes this as a "courtroom/lawyer" torunament and the closing argument made by the protagonist is top notch in terms of "telling a story" - which is argument 101 for a criminal trial. Otherwise, though, the list of 32 were great.
2. I do appreciate the vagueness of the metrics here though with simply calling it a "top" courtroom/lawyer movie. There's a balance between telling a great story and maitaining the reality of courtroom procedures and the rules of evidence. The latter can, after all, be surprisingly boring - even if a hotly contested and drama-filled fact pattern. In real-life there are rarely courtroom surpises ("Matlock") and the riveting moments can be bogged down by sidebars for evidentiary issues or the necessary presentation I have done a murder trial myself - which was a "close" heavily-attended case that was an actual whodunnit - and there were parts that were for sure boring to onlookers. But, a TV/move can take it too far. I had to stop watching Law and Order:SVU, despite finding the stories interesting, because the show basically stopped caring about and following even basic criminal law and procedure (even the original Law and Order and it's ####### incredibly stupid "withdrawn" courtroom scenes make that a tough watch sometimes). So, when I considered these movies, I tried to evaluate them for that balance of great story/acting while still being reasonably true to law and procedure.
The final four:
1. A Few Good Men - One of my favorite movies of all-time and, as a defense attorney, easily the most fictional courtroom drama that I think defense attorneys can identify with (for me, right down to the need to be good at softball). The interplay between Jack and Caffey - right down to the competitiveness about trivial things - is realistic and a relationship that develops between prosecutors and defense attorneys who often work the same cases. Caffey pushing cases by plea bargain is consistent with the fact that ~95% do settle by plea bargain and there are a lot of young defense attorneys that initially handle low-level misdemeanor cases whose main job is to chip away at plea offers in small stakes cases. However, my favorite scene in the movie is the scene where Caffey visits his client after he gets Jack to give him the plea offer he wants. Caffey, knowing that his hard work produced this option - and wisely knowing that from a risk-benefit analysis the plea was very favorable - happily tells Dawson about the offer he got it and expects him to be at least appreciative and then strongly consider it. Dawson, in true irrational client fashion, basically tells him to #### off then critcizes Caffey's drive while essentially playing the "on principle" card. I imagine from the neutral viewer's perspective that there was more sympathy for Dawson in the scene than Caffey since, you know, Dawson is innocent and all that (note: he wasn't and the jury verdict was spot on). But that scene really did a nice job of bringing to light one of if not the hardest parts of the job - advising a possibly innocent client to take a plea offer that you know is in his best interests only to have that client turn down the offer (while simultaneously not even appreciating the hard work that went into obtaining it), and then turning to you to literally save his life. People will commonly ask how a defense attorney can defend an obviously guilty person but that situation is far easier. It's the situations like this one, where the case lies in the gray area of guilt v. innocence, where the stakes are high, where you know losing is a real possibility due to the evidence likely to be presented at trial, and you're the only thing standing between your client and the rest of his life in prison. This is the scenario that keeps one up at night. This is the scenario that makes it hard to plug along and keep at it 100% when the client hasn't listened to you. I've been in this situation a number of times. I'm currently dealing with this exact situation. I have won trials where I still maintain the client should have taken the plea agreement. Here, despite the end of the movie, the trial outcome, and all the Hollywood righteousness that went along with it, Dawson and Downey should have listened to Caffey and taken the plea. And I really appreciate the movie had such a scene to somewhat explain this difficult position that Caffey was in.
The remainder of the movie is, of course, filled with very good scenes. It demonstrates the trial psychosis attorney experience on the eve of trial. Galloway's disdain for Caffey and the whole plea bargaining process is a nice embodiment of a brand new defense attorney who doesn't yet understand the system. I appreciated the scene with the baseball bat where Caffey discovers a small but key fact after his umpteenth review of the evidence (I've had a similar aha moment come after looking at the crime scene photos for the umpteenth time). The courtroom scenes themselves generally do a nice job adhering the rules of procedure and evidence. The "strenously object" scene is funny from a legal nerd perspective (although, frankly, that issue should have been dealt with in a motion in limine). And, of course, the confrontation of Jessep via cross-examination is riveting. My only two nitpicks of this movie - and they are small - is that 1) Caffey likely wouldn't have been able to drop his caseload so suddenly to focus on just one case; and 2) while I'm not as familiar with the military justice process, the trial was set awfully quickly for a case of such high stakes. Most criminal cases don't happen so swiftly.
2. To Kill a Mockingbird - From a social justice perspective, there may be no better story. The issues that arise such as racial disparity and discrimination are captured very well and the inequality in the courtroom follows. From an acting perspective, Peck is brilliant as the protagonist . The character sets a great tone and example for the ethics a lawyer should follow. The concepts in the story set a great example that any human should follow. The movie adapted and adhered to the book incredibly well. However, it's no surprise that Harper Lee, while she attended law school, didn't actually litigate. As such, the courtroom scenes themselves as a fictionalized example of what real trials and lawyers look like and face is somewhat lacking. As such, while it's not really a nitpick, in a tournment where we're talking courtroom scenes this movie shouldn't win.
Pick: A Few Good Men
3. My Cousin Vinny - Despite being a comedy, My Cousin Vinny is hands down the movie that actually takes the viewer through a surprsingly accurate trip through the criminal procedure. Starting with the arrest ("I shot the clerk?!"), going to the preliminary hearing ("You really thought we could win? We are in Ala-#######-bama"), the pre-trial process ("He just gave me his whole file!") and, of course, the trial itself ("How many fingers am I holding up? For the record, counsel is holding up two fingers. Your honor, please!") the movie mostly follows the actual court process pretty darn closely. Vinny's cross-examination of the witnesses, especially after the movie provided their very convincing testimonies at the preliminary hearing, was realistically masterful and sans the hyperbolic gloss of a typical courtroom fictional drama. I also appreciated how the prosecutor and law enforcement were genuinely portrayed as being pretty neutral to the extent that they didn't immediately just refuse to see exculpatory evidence when it came out during trial.
From a movie-perspective, the acting and comedy is so well done. I love the cousin. He's totally the client who knows just enough about law (I took pre-law!) to be totally detrimental to himself and his flip-flopping between lawyers is great. Tomei's portrayal of the overconfident and feisty but fiercely loyal New York girlfriend is such an entertaining character. The judge and his adherence to courtroom rules and etiquette is quite funny. And, of course, Vinny screwing up in many of the new ways that new attorneys fear but ultimately showing that being smart and knowing the facts of one's case (defense attorney 101 is making sure that when trial starts you know the facts of the case better than anybody else in the room) does ultimately lead to success.
I do, of course, have some nitpicks. The portrayal of the public defender was stereotypically cringeworthy (public defenders spend more time in courtrooms on average than any other lawyer and there's no way he'd have not gotten over the nervous stutter). Arguably, Vinny probably should not have been able to call his gf as an expert witness without prior disclosure (although the voir dire scene was great). Further, Vinny probably wouldn't have been able to represent them in the first place - there's a process called "pro hac vice" that's generally required and many states have bar numbers and cards to prove that someone is a lawyer. But, oddly, with the movie being a comedy that is wonderfully written to not take itself too seriously they can be much more easily and comfortable overlooked than if they were in some self-righteous drama. In other words, at least to me, I can set them aside as comedic devices and not some errant and unfair commentary on the real-life actors within the system.
Again, though, what vaults this movie to the absolute top tier of courtroom movies is the balance between being an entertaining movie (in this case a genuinely funny comedy) while actually correctly teaching the viewer about the criminal process and the rules. Regarding the latter, the movie is so well done that several of the courtroom scenes are oftentimes used as a demonstrative examples in actual Evidence classes in law school. My Evidence professor used it. I've used it when I've taught criminal procedure. So, from a legal perspective, it's just such a rare treat to have a movie that's both genuinely entertaining while also being accurate and borderline educational.
4. 12 Angry Men - From a cinematic perspective, and considering that like 90% of the movie takes place in one set with the same actors engaging just in pure dialogue, it's incredible. In other words, I think it's one of the best movies of all-time. The acting is so good. Each actor plays his character's stereotype perfectly. And, from a legal perspective, I think it fairly demonstrates some of the prejudices real potential jurors have and the dynamics of groupthink (e.g. one of the jurors just wanting to get to the ballgame, the difficulty sometimes of having a unaminous verdict, some jurors clearly just willing to do what the others will do, etc.). I also really, really like that the jurors don't prove that the defendant is innocent but instead appropriately arrive at what is some very reasonable doubt as to whether or not he did it. That is, after all, the standard. A common jury instruction (and a point I beat into the jurors' minds in both opening and closing) is that the analysis throughout the process is solely whether the state can firmly convince the jury that the defendant did do it and the defendant has no burden to fimly convince the jury that he didn't do it (or that somebody else did) and that it shouldn't expected. When the jury actually analyzes the facts (like the angle of the knife wound, whether the witness could hear over the train, whether the firsthand witness was wearing her glasses, etc.) it's a great example of what a jury should do. So, from that perspective, and when combined with the sheer quality of acting in this movie, it absolutely should be top tier for this contest and, frankly, if this were a "greatest movie" tournament in a film class this movie should win.
But, this is a courtroom/lawyer tournament. And, from that perspective, this movie fails because it perpetuates such poor stereotypes about the criminal justice system I wish it could be unmade (note: I recognize this story/move was made decades ago and maybe back then it was different but I doubt it). First and foremost, the portrayal of the public defender is grossly unfair and only serves to further the stereotype that public defenders are worthless when, in reality, they are some of the hardest-working lawyers in the system. Most of them care. Most of them work their cases the best they can. Most of them, especially ones assigned to a murder case, have significant courtroom experience. The downfall, usually, falls on caseload and resources. Additionally, the portrayal of the disinterested judge also serves to perpetuate a hideous stereotype. Real judges know the weight of the cases they oversee. If they've become a judge they very likely believe in the system. They aren't going to be notceably bored when reading jury instructions at the end of a first degree murder trial. So, in short, #### you 12 Angry Men for perpetuating ugly and likely errant stereotypes about a system where most people involved want to see the right thing happen. The self-righteousness of Henry Fonda having to save it is so self-indulgent Hollywood elitism that it makes me almost want to be sympathetic to Trump for some irrational reason. After all, this movie, unlike My Cousin Vinny, takes itself so seriously that the viewer should not overlook its flaws.
Pick: My Cousin Vinny
