The Verdict

Plot

Frank Galvin (Paul Newman) was once a promising graduate of Boston College Law School and a lawyer at an elite Boston law firm. But he was framed for jury tampering some years back by the firm's senior partner because he was going to expose their corrupt practices. The firm fired him and his marriage ended in divorce. Although he retains his license to practice law, Frank has become an alcoholic ambulance chaser who has had only four cases over the last three years, all of which he has lost.

As a favor, his friend and former teacher Mickey (Jack Warden) sends him a medical malpractice case in which it is all but assured that the defense will settle for a large amount. The case involves a young woman who was given an anesthetic during childbirth, after which she choked on her own vomit and was deprived of oxygen. The young woman is now comatose and on a respirator. Her sister and brother-in-law are hoping for a monetary award in order to give her proper care. Frank assures them they have a strong case. Meanwhile, Frank, who is lonely, becomes romantically involved with Laura (Charlotte Rampling), a woman he meets at a local bar.

Frank visits the comatose woman and is deeply affected. He then meets with the bishop of the Archdiocese of Boston (Edward Binns), which owns the Catholic hospital where the incident took place. As expected, the bishop's representative offers a substantial amount of money – $210,000 – to settle out of court, but Frank declines the offer as he fears that this may be his last chance to do something right as a lawyer, and that merely taking the handout would render him "lost". Everyone, including the presiding judge and the victim's relatives, is stunned by Frank's decision (Frank fails to communicate the offer to his client's family before rejecting it).

Things quickly go wrong for Frank: his client's brother-in-law finds out from "the other side" that he has turned down the $210,000, and angrily confronts Frank; his star medical expert disappears; a hastily arranged substitute's credentials and testimony are called into serious question on the witness stand. His opponent, the high-priced attorney Ed Concannon (James Mason), has at his disposal a large legal team that is masterful with the press; the presiding judge (Milo O'Shea) makes deliberate efforts to obstruct Frank's questioning of his expert; and no one who was in the operating room is willing to testify that there was any negligence.

Frank's big break comes when he discovers that Kaitlin Costello (Lindsay Crouse), the nurse who admitted his client to the hospital, is now a preschool teacher in New York. Frank travels there to track her down, leaving Mickey and Laura working together in Frank's Boston office. Frank confronts Costello, asking, "Will you help me?"

Meanwhile, in Boston, Mickey is looking for cigarettes in Laura's handbag and discovers a check from Concannon's law firm. He infers that she is a mole, providing information on their legal strategy to the opposing lawyers.

Mickey flies to New York to tell Frank that Laura has been betraying them. He suggests to Frank that it would be easy to get the case declared a mistrial, but Frank decides to continue. Shortly thereafter, Frank meets Laura, who has also traveled to New York. In a display of cold fury, Frank strikes her in the face, knocking her to the floor.

Costello testifies that, shortly after the patient had become comatose, the anesthesiologist (one of the two doctors on trial, along with the archdiocese of Boston) told her to change her notes on the admitting form to hide his fatal error. She had written down that the patient had had a full meal only one hour before being admitted. The doctor had failed to read the admitting notes. Thus, in ignorance, he gave her an anesthetic that should never be given to a patient with a full stomach. As a result, the patient vomited and choked.

Costello further testifies that, when the anesthesiologist realized his mistake, he met with Costello in private and forced her to change the number "1" to the number "9" on her admitting notes. But Costello made a photocopy of the notes before she made the change, which she brought with her to court. She was subsequently fired, leading her to exclaim in court, "Who are these men? I wanted to be a nurse!" But Concannon quickly turns the situation around by getting the judge to declare the nurse's testimony stricken from the record on technicalities. Feeling that his case is hopeless, Frank gives a brief but passionate closing argument, telling the jury "you are the law" and entreating them to seek "truth and justice" in their hearts before they vote.

In the penultimate scene, the jury – apparently disregarding the judge's instructions to ignore the nurse's testimony – announces that they have found in favor of Frank's clients. As Frank, Mickey, and Frank's clients quietly rejoice, the foreman asks the judge whether the jury can award more than the amount the plaintiffs sought. The judge resignedly replies that they can, but the amount they decide on is not revealed. As Frank is congratulated by his clients, Mickey, and colleagues and strangers alike, he catches a glimpse of Laura watching him across the atrium.

That night, Laura, in a drunken stupor on her bed, drops her whiskey on the floor, drags the phone toward her, and puts in a call to Frank. As the phone rings, Frank sits in his office with a cup of coffee. He moves to answer it, but ultimately decides not to. The film ends with the phone continuing to ring.

Production

Film rights to the novel were bought by the team of Richard Zanuck and David Brown. A number of actors, including Roy Scheider, William Holden, Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant and Dustin Hoffman, expressed interest in the project because of the strength of the lead role. Arthur Hiller was originally attached to direct and David Mamet hired to write a screenplay. Neither Zanuck-Brown nor Hiller liked Mamet's script, so Hiller left the project and the producers commissioned another screenplay, from Jay Presson Allen. The producers liked this script and were approached by Robert Redford, who liked the project but did not like Allen's script. Redford suggested they hire James Bridges as a writer-director and Bridges wrote several drafts of the screenplay, but Redford was not happy with any of them and Bridges left the project. Redford then began having meetings with Sydney Pollack without telling the producers; irritated, they fired Redford.

Zanuck and Brown then hired Sidney Lumet to direct, sending him all versions of the script. After several rewrites, Lumet decided the story's original grittiness was fast devolving and chose Mamet's original script. This was agreed to by Paul Newman, who ultimately agreed to star.

Bruce Willis has an uncredited background appearance as an extra in the final courtroom scene, in one of his first film appearances. Tobin Bell also appears, to Willis' right.

Reception

The Verdict holds a 96% "Fresh" rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes. In a poll of 500 films held by Empire magazine, it was voted 254th Greatest Movie of all time. In 2013, the Writers Guild of America ranked the script #91 on its list of the 101 greatest screenplays ever written. Richard D. Pepperman praised the scene in which Judge Hoyle eats breakfast and offers Galvin coffee as "a terrific use of objects, making for a believable judge in his personal, comfortable and suitable place, as well as a Physical Action (motion) that demonstrates the subtext of the Judge's objective (in support of the insurance company, the doctor and their attorney) without an abundance of expository dialogue."

The film is recognized by the American Film Institute in these lists: