So much for swearing in and justice.
“The Whole Truth” is Keanu Reeves’ show — he’s in the very first frame and the very last as Louisiana defense attorney Richard Ramsey. In both moments you get the feeling he’s not a happy man. Ramsey is successful but understated — he comes from humble roots and he’s not your golf-playing, two-martinis-at-lunch type of lawyer. He rides a motorcycle to work and eats takeout for dinner and, despite his groomed exterior, he’s riddled with self-doubt. Before each court session, he locks himself in the bathroom to vomit his guts out and when this ritual is disturbed, he has a mild panic attack. The man is fragile, but he also knows how to deploy that characteristic as a tactical weapon.
Director Courtney Hunt — whose 2008 thriller “Frozen River” won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival — cast Reeves as Ramsey because “he is the most lawyer-like actor in Hollywood,” according to the production notes.
“I wanted to play Ramsey as a self-made man who has a certain toughness,” Reeves tells The Japan Times. “He’s from the wrong side of tracks, and so he understands what it takes to get where is, and keep himself successful. But he’s also full of weak spots. He knows that about himself and about other people. I think half of the fun of this movie is figuring out what his weaknesses are.”
The other half according to Reeves, “is the whodunit factor.”
Hugely wealthy defense attorney Boone Lassiter (James Belushi) has been stabbed in the heart and the fingerprints of his teenage son Michael (Gabriel Basso) are all over the handle. The son has confessed to the crime, and Ramsey — a friend of the family — is called in by Boone’s wife Loretta (Renee Zellweger) to get Michael acquitted. It’s a case no other lawyer wants to touch: a spoiled rich white kid accused of patricide is not the kind of suspect likely to sway a working-class jury. But Ramsey is determined to get Michael off, because the other outcome is sure to “destroy Loretta,” as he says to newly hired assistant Janelle (Gugu Mbatha-Raw). The biggest stumbling block is Michael himself — he refuses to say a single word and offers no material that could benefit his case.
“I found Michael’s character interesting,” Reeves says. “He and Ramsey are on the same team, they’re both striving toward the same goal and yet they’re not speaking to each other.”
The veiled animosity reaches such a level that Ramsey sits out one courtroom session and brings in Janelle.
That’s when Michael speaks for the first time,” Reeves says. “That was a crucial moment because he lets everyone know that he trusts Janelle who is a complete stranger, over Ramsey who’s doing everything he can to save him.”
“The Whole Truth” is that rare movie that is released in Japan before opening in the United States, and is Reeves’ first non-action role in four years (the last was “Generation Um…” in 2012). It’s also Zellweger’s first public appearance and major film role since her much publicized alleged cosmetic surgery two years ago. Regarding the film’s delayed U.S. opening, Reeves says, “These things happen. It doesn’t take away the fact that I loved working on it, and proud of the outcome.”
Reeves says he prepared for the role by attending trials at a New Orleans courthouse to get a feel of how things are done “and especially how lawyers talk.” He also encountered some surprises.
“I saw some things in the South that I thought weren’t happening anymore, things that had to do with race and poverty,” he says. “People were not getting as much help as they could, because there was such a shortage of public defenders. The lawyers themselves were working around the clock for not much pay, and the system seemed to be putting a lot of pressure on everyone. I was watching people getting prosecuted and convicted on a short cycle, which is very different from what happens in this movie.”
So the odds are stacked in the favor of a rich white kid?
“I would definitely say that if you had a lot of money, it could make a lot of difference in a court of law,” says Reeves. “One thing I learned: The defense attorney does not have an obligation to the truth. He has an obligation to his client, and his priority is to win. That’s how it works. The ideal, of course, is that everyone gets a fair trial. The thing is, these trial lawyers often invent their own characters and so much of what happens in court is theatrical.”
Just like in a movie?
“No, I wouldn’t go that far,” Reeves says. “But it was all very instructive.”
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Source: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2016/03/30/films/keanu-reeves-concoction-whole-truth/#.WCZ6D9V97Dc
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