THE LINCOLN LAWYER (****)

Dir: Brad Furman. Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Marisa Tomei, William H Macy

Matthew McConaughey has an awful lot of fun in The Lincoln Lawyer and it's a reminder that – before a string of forgettable rom-coms derailed his A-list standing – he once had the looks and chops of a true movie star.

Hopefully, this is the start of a comeback because the film largely succeeds on his considerable charm and charisma (and the looks appear intact).

McConaughey's slightly sleazy lawyer runs his business from the back of the titular car and is drawn into a web of double dealing after being hired to defend Ryan Phillippe's very sleazy playboy, accused of the beating and rape of a prostitute. There are a few other cases lurking in the background and it should come as no surprise when the various threads are revealed to be connected.
This hardly breaks new ground as far as courtroom thrillers go, but it has a good feel and turns its tricks with style, doling out revelations at appropriate times and keeping a sufficient number of balls in the air to continue the mystery. The inevitable ‘crisis of conscience' angle may be a little contrived but it doesn't over-intrude.

There was a time when John Grisham captured the market and a new film adaptation seemed to arrive every month, but it's been a while. This is from a novel by Michael Connelly (Blood Work) – one of his Mickey Haller books – and those who enjoy Grisham-like legal shenanigans will lap it up. I see a franchise looming for Mr McConaughey.

Love Crime (***) is a low key French office thriller, a battle of wills between Kristen Scott Thomas's boss and her protégée, played by Ludivine Sagnier. The settings and production design are deliberately cold and corporate, well suited for the manipulative games as Scott Thomas messes with her assistant's mind, eventually taking one piece of credit too much and setting in motion an elaborate revenge. Veteran director Alan Corneau keeps tight rein on proceedings and it's good to see Scott Thomas, resident in France for a number of years, getting another of the great roles that seemed unavailable in to her in England.

As the opening's sombre piano score and bleak London streets suggest, Tony (****) – the latest in the neverending cycle of serial killer films – takes a social realist route, the eponymous loner watching old action movies on VHS, wandering aimlessly in search of company, and generally being oppressed by life. He also kills people, his flat filling, Repulsion-style, with bodies. This is not a fun film. But, in common with Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, it offers a depressingly believable glimpse of how dangerously unstable misfits exist unnoticed on the fringes of society.

Wall-to-wall silliness is hardly a drawback for a Jason Statham action outing – witness the Transported and Crank films – and so it proves in The Mechanic (***), the remake of a forgettable Charles Bronson flick. In fact the story of Statham's ‘elite' hit man is only at its best when most absurd. When mentor (Donald Sutherland, paying the rent) becomes the latest target, Statham's ordered life is disrupted by said mentor's son (Ben Foster) arriving in search of tutelage and revenge. Predictable complications ensue. Action is competent, Statham is buff and gruff, and the whole thing is of course, nonsensical. File under Guilty Pleasures; or ignore.

There's a lot of play in stories of low-budget filmmaking and in productions gone awry through rampant egos and shady financing. Made In Romania (**) has all that, but never manages to shoehorn some individually entertaining scenes into a cohesive whole. Jennifer Tilly bravely parodies herself as the star of an English period drama that ends up imploding after filming is shifted (for tax reasons) to Romania, but other names (Danny Huston, Elizabeth Hurley) are only on call for one scene each and the travails that beset the company are neither new or especially imaginative. Try David Mamet's State And Main instead.