Entered out of competition at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival, The Good Lawyer re-teams Laurent Lafitte, who memorably played the French entrepreneurial phenomenon Bernard Tapie in the Netflix series Class Act, with the director of that very venture, Tristan Séguéla. Their new joint effort may be just the slick, fast-paced and pulse-raising dose of end-of-festival pick-me-up the audience may be thirsting for.

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The Good Lawyer resides somewhere between Bad Lieutenant and Pusher, sporting an abundance of fairly rotten players, a territory seemingly natural to Léonard Landry, a criminal defence attorney who'd be the butt of any lawyer joke, no matter how low. He's introduced snorting cocaine at an underground club, fending off some menacing thug on the phone, and his boss currently awaits his presence in court. A frantic taxi ride and an additional snort later, Léonard realises he has two court hearings that same hour, both involving hardened gangsters, and attempts to sort out the matter by running between courtrooms. The ill-fated strategy climaxes in a passed-out pile of crumbled Léonard on the floor, plastic pouches of white, illegal substance falling out of his pocket, some highly annoyed judges and some mightily menacing thugs. One month from now, it is settled: he'll have his own day in court, in the defendant's seat. Three weeks (far too short, really) are spent in rehab, we learn.

Now begins a week in the life of lousy Léonard with plenty at stake and little in the shape of a plan, if anything at all (recalling the Pusher tagline “You don't have a chance. Seize it!”). Most of his professional colleagues are only too happy to see him hung, drawn and quartered, including the skilled head of the bar Iris (Mélanie Laurent), whose experience of a bad love affair with him makes her especially reluctant to take on his case. At his wit’s end, Léonard looks through some thus far neglected intern applications from law students and takes on Noé (Anthony Bajon) merely because he owns a car, and thus they form an odd couple of antihero buddies. Out of nowhere comes a Congolese youngster who's witnessed some shady dealings between a local terrorist group and a major French conglomerate called Varenne, which opens up some opportunities to Léonard's advantage. Heading this case is none other than Iris, which in turn opens things up for some reciprocal backscratching. Will he beat the clock, coming out on the other side in one piece? Is everybody slightly rotten, or worse? Is there such a thing as a “good lawyer”, and if so, who is s/he?

We'll all find out in this perfect flick for a lazy Sunday (soon to appear on Netflix), which is well-crafted, decently multifaceted and sitting presentably with the other main French Venice 2026 contributions by the likes of Stéphane Brizé and Cédric Kahn. The cast delivers effectively throughout, with especially muscular support from Gédéon Ekay (playing two brothers!) and Carole Bouquet as, quite probably, the most menacing thug of them all.

The Good Lawyer was produced by France’s Iconoclast.