Phony from the beginning till the end

Rating: 3/10 (24 April 2013)

1. Why wasn't Mike disbarred, something he deserved? 2. Cindy's face didn't have a trace of the ravages of her addiction. 3. I wanted the constantly irritating Terry and Stemler shot. 4. No reason shown for the middle aged Mike's lack of success. He must have been a terrible lawyer. 5. Kyle, shown to have a strong character succumbs, unbelievably, to Mike's "honest emotional pitches" near the end of the movie. This was out of character for him but the hack writer's abrupt change in Kyle had to be done to achieve the "happy" ending. 6. Alex Shaffer and Burt Young were brilliant. 7. Mike was a master manipulator who believed his own b.s. 7. Film ends with Mike agreeing to send $1500 a month to Cindy. We're to believe then that his part time job as a bartender will not only compensate for the 1500 "loss" of income but also supply the minus amount of money that caused him to feloniously cheat Leo in the first place? 8. We're to 'suspend our disbelief' about how competitive high school athletics are in this country? There's no way a ringer like Kyle would be allowed to compete for high school tournaments. The other teams coaches would make sure that didn't happen. 9. Did I say that Paul Giamatti's sincerity seemed like the pretending a sociopath engages in? 10. I give it a 3 because it was decently produced.