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The Lincoln Lawyer

In the gripping thriller “The Lincoln Lawyer,” Matthew McConaughey stars as Michael “Mick” Haller, a slick, charismatic Los Angeles criminal defense attorney who operates out of the back of his Lincoln Continental sedan. Having spent most of his career defending petty, gutter- variety criminals, Mick unexpectedly lands the case of a lifetime: defending a rich Beverly Hills playboy (Ryan Phillippe) who is accused of attempted murder. However, what initially appears to be a straightforward case with a big money pay-off swiftly develops into a deadly match between two masters of manipulation and a crisis of conscience for Haller.

Smooth operator Mickey Haller (Matthew McConaughey) zips around Los Angeles in his chauffeured Lincoln town car, cutting deals and finding clients on the road. Then he lands a doozy: a rich real-estate heir (Ryan Phillippe) accused of the brutal assault of an escort. At first, the case looks like a breeze, but odd details start nagging at Haller until he recognizes an ugly connection to an earlier case--and realizes he's been set up in the strangest way. There are some deep implausibilities in The Lincoln Lawyer, but they hardly matter. This is a movie that cruises on charm and smart casting, from McConaughey as a man whose glib polish is betrayed by a streak of doubt, down to the detectives (solid performances from Bryan Cranston, Michael Pare, Michaela Conlin, and others) and lowlifes (Katherine Moennig as an unlucky hooker, Shea Whigham as a lazy snitch) that flesh out the legal world. Every character pops out, clean and distinct; this sort of web-of-deceit story line, full of twists and turns, depends on the audience clearly connecting all the players. Some moments get overstated or maybe don't make complete sense, but the zippy pace carries the audience over those bumps. The Lincoln Lawyer could easily turn into a television series, a sort of Rockford Files-esque mixture of procedure and puzzle making. Also starring Marisa Tomei, William H. Macy, Frances Fisher, John Leguizamo, and Josh Lucas as the prosecuting attorney who gives McConaughey some competition in the chiseled-looks department. --Bret Fetzer

IANR passenger special running along the Cedar River at Cedar Rapids. 10/12/06

Flooding in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on June 13, 2008.

Photo credit: John Torpy

Josh Radnor (CBS' Emmy-nominated ''How I Met Your Mother'') wrote, directed and stars in happythankyoumoreplease, a sharp comedy centered on a group of 20-something New Yorkers struggling to figure out themselves, their lives and their loves.

On his way to a meeting with a publisher, aspiring novelist Sam Wexler (Radnor) finds Rasheen, a young boy separated from his family on the subway. When the quiet Rasheen refuses to be left alone with social services, Sam learns the boy has already been placed in six previous foster homes and impulsively agrees to let the boy stay with him for a couple days. Dropped into Sam's chaotic, bachelor lifestyle, Rasheen is introduced to Sam's circle of friends; Annie (Malin Akerman) who has an unhealthy pattern of dating the wrong men, as well as an auto-immune disorder which has rendered her hairless, Mary-Catherine (Zoe Kazan) and Charlie (Pablo Schreiber) whose potential move to Los Angeles threatens their relationship, and Mississippi (Kate Mara), an aspiring singer/waitress who tests Sam's fear of commitment. When Sam's unexpected friendship with Rasheen develops, he realizes adulthood is not about waiting for the right answers to get the life you want, but simply stumbling ahead and figuring them out in the process.

Featuring a brilliant young cast and music from breaking indie musicians, happythankyoumoreplease deftly captures the uncertainty and angst of what it is to be young, vulnerable, and desperate to find out who you are - or perhaps more importantly, who you want to be.

It probably wasn't intentional, but Josh Radnor's first feature feels like a cross between Reality Bites and Garden State. Like Ben Stiller and Zach Braff, who also spent time in the television trenches, the actor-director takes the pulse of his generation through a cluster of characters. Radnor (How I Met Your Mother) plays Sam, a freelance writer who lives in New York City, along with Mary-Catherine and Charlie (Broadway veterans Zoe Kazan and Pablo Schreiber), a couple agonizing over a move to Los Angeles, and Annie (Malin Akerman), his best friend, who hasn't let an autoimmune disorder prevent her from enjoying an active social life, though she has doubts about the romantic potential in a particularly persistent attorney (Arrested Development's Tony Hale). When Sam falls for Mississippi (Kate Mara), a barmaid who moonlights as a cabaret singer, she admits a mutual attraction, but fears he treats relationships more like short stories than novels, when she's looking for a man with a longer attention span. Sam's short-term outlook starts to change when he takes in Rasheen (Michael Algieri), a silent comedian of a boy who loses track of his foster family on a crowded subway train. A few hours as his guardian turns into several days when Sam's every attempt to return him to the authorities goes awry. If the upbeat resolution to these interrelated stories comes as little surprise, Radnor's maiden directorial voyage registers as a sweetly diverting affair--though he may want to go easy on the folk-pop montages next time around. --Kathleen C. Fennessy