Back in the day, legal thrillers were commonplace in movie theaters. It’s easy to understand why, considering they could be made for a reasonable budget, they dug deep into issues of justice and morality, and they gave actors a chance to play flashy roles and spout chewy monologues. Some of the most beloved are:

• Primal Fear
• Michael Clayton
• A Few Good Men
• The Firm
• A Time To Kill
• My Cousin Vinny*
• The Hurricane
• Amistad
• Philadelphia
• The Verdict

That was then. Now, we rarely see legal thrillers, and I think there are a few reasons for that. The true crime genre has replaced lawyer movies. Major studios have largely abandoned mid-budget movies in favor of tentpoles, and legal dramas migrated to television. Plus, in 2024, a Gallup poll** revealed that a scant 35% of Americans had faith in the judicial system. When that few people believe in the legal system, it’s no wonder movies about the legal system aren’t popular.

Yet like a rogue prosecutor, once in a while an honest to Oliver Wendell Holmes legal thriller manages to break through what should be an impervious system. The most recent of which is One of the Good Ones. While it’s a little shaggy and a little sloppy, its heart and brain are in the right places. 

What do you call one hundred lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A good start. It’s an old joke, and one that Dean Alessi (Tom Paolino) probably agrees with. He’s employed by Buffalo’s Lawyer Disciplinary Office, and as you might imagine, that makes him about as popular as syphilis. That’s because his job is to prevent the citizenry from being screwed over by unethical attorneys. 

When we’re introduced to him, Dean is investigating an Assistant District Attorney who’s inconveniently turned up dead. Even more inconvenient is the fetid whiff of corruption around the dead man, his not exactly grieving widow Susie (Rosanna Pfeifer), and a connection to Sam Marcum (Jacob A. Ware), the current District Attorney.

Dean doesn’t smell a rat, he positively smells a mischief of rats.*** With the help of his investigator Stu Foley (Roderick Garr), Dean starts digging. He suspects Marcum of futzing with cases and making evidence vanish. He also suspects that Marcum is, as the Bard said, groping for trout in a peculiar river with Susie. 

Say what you will about Dean, but he’s a professional, and he holds himself to the highest ethical standards. He’s determined to get to the truth, regardless of what it takes. While he’s dealing with that, he’ll also grapple with his own alcoholism, the death of his son due to a drunk driver, the inevitable destruction of his marriage, and a hesitant romance with attorney Kat Franklin (Amy Zubieta).

One of the Good Ones is the feature directorial debut of Julie O”Hora. She’s made a good film, and while it has its flaws, she’s internalized a lesson that eludes many other filmmakers. On the one hand, there are times where the cinematography could be more dynamic. Watch the scenes with Dean and Stu hanging out at their bar. For the most part, the camera is plunked down in a static medium two-shot, with an occasional reaction shot of Paranoid Perry (Bill Kennedy), a local weirdo who spouts unfunny conspiracy theories. Those repeated static shots sap the energy from the sequence, and while I don’t need O’Hora’s camera swooping around like David Fincher on crystal meth, slightly more dynamic camera angles and movement would have given the film more vitality.

And yet, this is one of the rare films that, at eighty-four minutes, I wished was a good bit longer. O’Hora is very good at knowing when to pump the brakes to allow scenes to breathe. That skill means her characters drive the narrative as opposed to being held hostage by the plot. It’s true that there are a few moments where the editing feels a little wonky and scenes run slightly too long. I’ll take that any day, all day, because it shows O’Hora’s directorial instincts are character-focused. Instincts like that make the likelihood of a long filmmaking career much stronger.

O’Hora’s co-writer Vincent Scarsella has thirty years of legal experience, and this script is based on the first novel in his “Lawyers Gone Bad” series. That experience is reflected in the screenplay’s details, and I appreciated its verisimilitude. The script is also committed to solid characterization, particularly when Dean’s morality collides with the many, many gray areas in the legal system. That’s mostly a feature, and a less interesting script would have made Dean a standard slimeball lawyer, someone with a moral compass similar to a member of the Trump Administration. Instead, Dean isn’t discovering long-buried decency. He’s protecting it from the slings and arrows in his personal and professional life. The one problem with that is, at times, Dean is too good a guy. As written, there are a number of moments where he comes close to the edge. He almost fails, and as a result, Dean’s triumph feels a little hollow.

That frustrates me. The film’s concept is a good one, a decent man up against an indecent system, and to pull that off the lead needs to be cast correctly. As Dean, Tom Paolino understood the assignment. He’s playing a good man who is by no means weak. Paolino is a skilled and interesting actor, and I would have been interested to see what his portrayal of a darker, messier Dean would have looked like. With two exceptions, the rest of the cast can’t measure up to the work Paolino puts in. Roderick Garr is one of those exceptions. He’s got excellent chemistry with Paolino, and as Stu, he pulls off the experience and professionalism with a light touch. The other is Jacob A. Ware as Sam Marcum. Reader, every time Ware did anything on-screen, I cackled. His performance is dialed all the way up to Maximum Scumbag, and I loved it. Ware is deliciously, almost cartoonishly oily in the best way.**** I don’t mean this as a criticism. His performance simultaneously is the biggest thing in a locked-down film, yet it never screws up the balance. 

Is One of the Good Ones in competition to be an all-timer legal thriller? No. It’s solid when it counts, though. I like that a first-time feature director made a film about the morality of the legal system. I like that a guy primarily known as a character actor got a chance to not just play the lead, but play a good person. These creatives make the right moves, and I’m curious to see what they do next.

*Technically not a thriller, but it’s considered to be the most accurate movie about the American legal system ever made. Law schools also use it to teach courtroom procedure and decorum.

**Which you can dig into here. 

***I had to look that one up.

****Ware also makes a hilarious choice when his character repeatedly tries to high-five the woman he’s been having sex with. 

Tim Brennan Movie Critic

Tim has been alarmingly enthusiastic about movies ever since childhood. He grew up in Boulder and, foolishly, left Colorado to study Communications in Washington State. Making matters worse, he moved to Connecticut after meeting his too-good-for-him wife. Drawn by the Rockies and a mild climate, he triumphantly returned and settled down back in Boulder County. He's written numerous screenplays, loves hiking, and embarrassed himself in front of Samuel L. Jackson. True story.