Animation
Long Story Short
‘Long Story Short’ comes with much of the same humorous melancholy that came with ‘BoJack Horseman’…and many of the same content issues, too.
Rudy Baylor never backs down from a fight. It makes him an excellent lawyer—even if it gets him fired before he can even pass the bar exam.
A week ago, Rudy was living every law student’s dream. Fresh out of law school with a job lined up at a prestigious firm—a job that comes with a six-figure salary and–what more could a new lawyer want?
But in Rudy’s first meeting withhis new boss, the conversation goes sideways fast. Seems that the firm’s managing partner, Leo F. Drummond, shares that eagerness for a fight. Rudy can’t get past that first meeting without starting an argument that gets him kicked to the curb.
So, after knocking on the door of every reputable firm in town and getting every door shut in his face, Rudy is left with two options: go back to bartending or turn to the not-so-reputable firms.
He soon lands at, the firm of Jocelyn “Bruiser” Stone, a ruthless ambulance chaser who works out of an old Mexican restaurant with a paralegal who failed the bar exam seven times. So much for every law student’s dream.
But as Rudy dives into a wrongful death suit that only someone as crazy as Bruiser would touch, he realizes there may be more to practicing law than fancy suits and six-figure salaries. Maybe justice shouldn’t be decided by giants like Drummond with armies of lawyers at their disposal. Maybe, just maybe, being a lawyer should be about defending the little guy — and making sure that no matter what, the truth gets its day in court.
You might be familiar with Francis Ford Coppola’s The Rainmaker (1997), starring a baby-faced Matt Damon, or maybe you prefer the original John Grisham novel. Don’t worry if you don’t know the source material, though. This new iteration of The Rainmaker clings to convention with everything it’s worth.
That’s not totally a bad thing. Sure, the plot is run-of-the-mill, and Grisham’s criticism of the healthcare industry is watered down by the addition of a serial killer nurse (don’t ask), but the content concerns are comparatively tame as well.
The biggest concern here is language, which pushes the limits of a network TV-14 rating. Pretty much everything short of the f-bomb is on the table here. Lawyers trade insults that are as tasteless as they are creative, some of which include crude sexual references. Rudy and his girlfriend engage in some suggestive behavior, but nothing significant makes it onscreen.
To make some closing remarks on this case: The Rainmaker tones down the complications of its source material in favor of standard, network-drama fare. Barring some recurring foul language, however, it’s not a bad option if you’re itching for a new legal thriller. Just don’t expect many memorable moments to jump through the screen.
And with that, the prosecution rests.
Rudy Baylor, an eager law school graduate, is fired from prestigious firm Tinley Britt after fighting with a managing partner. His only other option, beyond giving up law entirely, is the small-time firm of Jocelyn “Bruiser” Stone, where he quickly picks up a wrongful death suit against the very firm that fired him.
Foul language is a recurring issue throughout the episode. The s-word and “h—” are used three times, “a–“ is used four, “b–tard”, “d–k” and “d–n” are used twice, and “b–ch” is used once. Crude references to genitalia are also made.
People drink beer and shots of liquor at a bar. Tinley Britt associates drink socially at a baseball game. Sarah, Rudy’s girlfriend, brings two bottles of wine to his apartment, but she leaves before opening them. Rudy and his client Dot discuss how her son supposedly died of a drug overdose; she denies it, saying he was clean for a year before his death. A woman is shown smoking an electronic cigarette.
Rudy wakes up shirtless in bed, and it’s implied that Sarah spent the night before leaving early.
When she hears that Rudy is going to work for Tinley Britt, Dot tells him, “good luck working for Satan.” Rudy’s boss at Tinley Britt uses a quote from Genghis Khan about being “the punishment of God.” Sarah quotes the opening line of John Irving’s novel A Prayer for Owen Meany, which describes how the main character became a Christian.
Lauren Cook is serving as a 2021 summer intern for the Parenting and Youth department at Focus on the Family. She is studying film and screenwriting at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. You can get her talking for hours about anything from Star Wars to her family to how Inception was the best movie of the 2010s. But more than anything, she’s passionate about showing how every form of art in some way reflects the Gospel. Coffee is a close second.
‘Long Story Short’ comes with much of the same humorous melancholy that came with ‘BoJack Horseman’…and many of the same content issues, too.
Based on novel by Jenny Han, this series follows the complex love life of Belly, a young girl caught between two boys who are childhood friends as she joins the world of debutantes.
Crude, profane, salacious and offensive, Foodtopia just might make you sick to your stomach.
FX’s ‘Alien: Earth’ is just the latest graphically violent entry in the already graphically violent ‘Alien’ franchise.
