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David E. Kelley, the veteran tv author who created the “Presumed Innocent” collection, has the alternative temperament from Pakula — he’s all in regards to the juice. He’s a grasp of taking materials with a lurid or sensational edge and slickly packaging it for a mainstream TV viewers. When he’s in his relaxed mode, on “The Lincoln Lawyer” for Netflix or the risibly pulpy “Big Sky” for ABC, the outcomes might be entertaining, summoning distant recollections of his days as chief author on “L.A. Law.”
When he takes issues extra critically, although, he will get in bother (although it doesn’t essentially have an effect on his success, as “Big Little Lies” demonstrated). Like Pakula, he makes “Presumed Innocent” extra about Sabich than in regards to the presumably much less attention-grabbing query of whether or not Sabich is responsible of homicide. But all he has to supply are tortured psychology and transgression, offered slickly and repetitively, with head-scratching surprises rather than new concepts. Meant to be provocative, it’s simply wearying.
Given 5 and a half hours to play with, Kelley restores plot factors that had been minimize from the film and provides his personal, a few of which just about instantly change the fundamental phrases of Turow’s thriller plot. (A significant turning level involving tubal ligation is now moot.) He ups the frequency and steaminess of the flashback intercourse scenes between Sabich and the sufferer, Carolyn Polhemus (Renate Reinsve), whereas almost eliminating proof of both her competence or her ambition, that are important to the plot.
And when the case goes to court docket, Kelley’s penchant for loony melodrama kicks in, as our bodies drop and choices are made that violate all the foundations of wise process that we’ve realized from extra sober authorized dramas. (We ought to stipulate that Kelley, a former lawyer, has sensationalized courtroom motion for the final 40 years throughout a number of exhibits.)
While Polhemus doesn’t come into focus as rather more than a intercourse object, the actual victims on this “Presumed Innocent” are the performers. In distinction to Ford’s closed-in, monochromatic efficiency within the movie, the place Sabich appeared dumbfounded to be accused of homicide, Gyllenhaal is sweaty, jumpy and excessive, taking part in a Sabich who appears alternately terrified and royally offended, swinging between anguished apologies and violent outbursts.
