Standard Of Review: Daredevil Blends Lawyers, Superheroes, And Mighty Ducks

How does Daredevil the Netflix original television show compare to the 2003 movie starring Ben Affleck?

The 2003 film Daredevil is one of my least favorite films of all time. Released smack in the middle of Ben Affleck’s “Bennifer” period, the film is over-the-top, humorless, and pales in comparison to contemporaneous superhero films such as Spider-man, Spider-man 2, X-Men, and X-2. With the unparalleled success of the recent Marvel Universe films — including Iron Man, Captain America, and The AvengersDaredevil has been rebooted as a Netflix original television show, and the first season was released on April 10 (and it is going to take all of my power to not turn this column into a diatribe about how I hate the Netflix trend of releasing an entire season in one day). To my surprise, this new Daredevil television show is not only extremely enjoyable, but it is almost just as much a legal show as a superhero show (at least in the first few episodes). This column will contain spoilers up through the first three episodes of the season (and, as a caveat, I am not familiar with the Daredevil comic book series, so I will review the television show on its own merit).

The real name of the superhero Daredevil is Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), an attorney living and working in Hell’s Kitchen who was blinded as a child in an Alex Mack-esque chemical spill. When the show begins, Matt is an adult and has already become “Daredevil,” albeit less sartorially sophisticated than most superheroes as he merely dons a black mask. Matt has made it his mission to fight the criminal underbelly of Hell’s Kitchen (somewhat amusingly, essentially everyone on this show lives and works in Hell’s Kitchen and acts as if there is no other part of Manhattan; Daredevil is basically the embodiment of the famous New Yorker cover “View of the World from 9th Avenue”). Aided by his acute sense of hearing, Daredevil is a fantastic fighter, often able to take on numerous red shirt bad guys at once.

By day, Matt is a newly minted attorney trying to grow his legal practice in Hell’s Kitchen with his best friend Foggy Nelson, played by Elden Henson, who is best known for playing Fulton Reed in the Mighty Ducks series. I almost squealed when I discovered that Henson was a member of the cast because, as a child of the 1990s, I lived and breathed The Mighty Ducks. I have spent many a night wondering why the United States Junior Goodwill Games hockey team received so much media attention in D2 (was every other professional league on strike?). My tenth birthday party was a trip to see D3 (best birthday ever). I own an adult-sized Adam Banks t-shirt jersey (seriously). Even if there were no other reasons to watch Daredevil, I would watch it just to see one of the Bash Brothers. As if the casting of Henson wasn’t great enough, one of the Post Production Supervisors on Daredevil is actually named Adam Banks (and I swear on the life of Gunnar Stahl that this is true). Now that I think about it, pandering to Mighty Ducks nostalgists would be a great marketing strategy — if NBC has a terrible sitcom, it should go out of its way to cast the actor who played Averman.

Anyway, as much as I would like to write a 3,000-word exegesis on Gordon Bombay’s awful coaching in D2 (for example, Julie “The Cat” Gaffney was a much much better goalie than Goldberg, and yet Bombay inexplicably left her on the bench for the entire tournament, only to bring her in — ice cold — at the end of the final to face Stahl at the end of the climactic shootout with the entire tournament on the line), I should probably focus on Daredevil, which is actually a really solid legal show. Matt and Foggy complement each other as attorneys; Matt is more reserved and idealistic than Foggy, believing that their fledgling firm should only attempt to retain clients who are truly innocent. Foggy, on the other hand, is more outgoing, witty, and sarcastic, and he believes that innocent clients include any individuals who have not yet been found guilty. The banter between Matt and Foggy as they rent office space and take on their first few cases is one of the best parts of the show. Cox and Henson have great rapport, and I actually believe that these two men would actually be friends. On the other hand, I find it a little difficult to believe that Matt and Foggy, who graduated towards the top of their class at Columbia Law, would decide to hang out their own shingle; even if they did not want to work at a law firm, I would expect that they would join a public interest organization.

Daredevil expertly blends the show’s legal and superhero elements, as Matt uses his superhero alter ego to help his legal career, and vice versa. For example, in the third episode, James Wesley (Toby Leonard Moore), the right hand man for Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio), the criminal kingpin of Hell’s Kitchen, offers Matt and Foggy an extremely large retainer to represent John Healy (Alex Morf), a man hired by Fisk to execute a contract killing at a bowling alley. Foggy can only see the zeros on the paycheck, but Matt initially has numerous moral qualms about representing Healy. Matt eventually agrees to take the case once he realizes that representing Healy could be a conduit to the criminal underworld. Nevertheless, even though Matt knows that Healy is undoubtedly guilty, he still offers a zealous defense of his client, as long as it is within the bounds of the law. Accordingly, during the murder trial, Matt uses his keen sense of hearing to listen to the jurors’ heartbeats to determine which one had been coerced by Fisk to vote to acquit Healy. Matt — dressed as Daredevil — then confronts Fisk’s underlings, beating them up and forcing them to allow the juror to recuse himself from the case. However, the next day Matt hears the pulsating heartbeats of several other jurors, thus realizing the extent of Fisk’s influence.

Even when the show isn’t focusing on Matt and Foggy’s lives as attorneys, Daredevil is immensely entertaining, as it contains spectacular fight scenes. For example, the second episode contains a very long take in which Daredevil fights (and beats) a cavalcade of Russian mobsters in a hallway, which is very reminiscent of the famous hallway scene in the iconic 2003 South Korean film Oldboy (with the camera turned about ninety degrees). As an action fan, I have gotten extremely tired of the quick-cut, schizophrenic action scenes made popular by the Bourne films. Between Daredevil and the extremely underrated 2014 film John Wick, I am encouraged that action directors have begun to eschew quick cuts and are starting to favor more realistic-looking and well-choreographed long action scenes.

After watching the first three episodes, I am extremely excited to watch the rest of the season. Accordingly, I plan to review the whole season in three-episode chunks over the next few weeks, analyzing both the legal procedural elements and the superhero action elements. And, later in the season, if Daredevil brings in the actor who played Dean Portman, you may never read another column from me as I will have reached nirvana.

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Harry Graff is a litigation associate at a firm, but he spends days wishing that he was writing about film, television, literature, and pop culture instead of writing briefs. If there is a law-related movie, television show, book, or any other form of media that you would like Harry Graff to discuss, he can be reached at harrygraff19@gmail.com. Be sure to follow Harry Graff on Twitter at @harrygraff19.

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