Monday, January 9, 2012

AS SEEN ON TV: MITCH McDEERE

The new series 'The Firm' - based more on the novel than the movie - premiered last night on NBC.....

MITCH McDEERE

AS SEEN IN:
'The Firm'

AS PLAYED BY:
Josh Lucas

TV DIMENSION:
Earth Prime-Time

STATUS:
Multiversatile?
(At any rate, part of the multi-verse - book, film, television - like Radar O'Reilly of "M*A*S*H".)

SOURCE MATERIAL:
"The Firm"

WRITTEN BY:
John Grisham

From Wikipedia:
Mitchell Y. "Mitch" McDeere is a fictional character portrayed by Tom Cruise in Sydney Pollack's 1993 film adaptation of John Grisham's T"he Firm" (1991 novel). He is the main protagonist of the highly successful series and the husband of Abby McDeere. The character is currently being protrayed Josh Lucas for Entertainment One Television's show also named "The Firm". McDeere is a Harvard-educated tax lawyer who has a certified public accountant credential.

The television show picks up on the story of McDeere and his family ten years after the fictional setting of the 1991 novel and 1993 film. Both the novel and the film recount the story of an upstart attorney who unknowingly was hired by Bendini, Lambert & Locke, the white-collar crime operation of an organized crime family's enterprise. After graduating third in his Harvard Law School class, he became a whistleblower to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and brought down the corrupt Memphis law firm with Chicago mob ties. The TV series begins as the McDeere family emerges from witness protection to encounter old and new challenges.

From the source:
THE SENIOR PARTNER studied the résumé for the hundredth time and again found nothing he disliked about Mitchell Y. McDeere, at least not on paper. He had the brains, the ambition, the good looks. And he was hungry; with his background, he had to be. He was married, and that was mandatory. The firm had never hired an unmarried lawyer, and it frowned heavily on divorce, as well as womanizing and drinking. Drug testing was in the contract. He had a degree in accounting, passed the CPA exam the first time he took it and wanted to be a tax lawyer, which of course was a requirement with a tax firm. He was white, and the firm had never hired a black. They managed this by being secretive and clubbish and never soliciting job applications. Other firms solicited, and hired blacks. This firm recruited, and remained lily white. Plus, the firm was in Memphis, of all places, and the top blacks wanted New York or Washington or Chicago. McDeere was a male, and there were no women in the firm. That mistake had been made in the mid-seventies when they recruited the number one grad from Harvard, who happened to be a she and a wizard at taxation. She lasted four turbulent years and was killed in a car wreck.

He looked good, on paper. He was their top choice. In fact, for this year there were no other prospects. The list was very short. It was McDeere or no one.

BCnU!

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