It's not every day a Houston legal case gets the Hollywood treatment. But Houston is at the center of Puncture, a legal drama that filmed around town last year and premiered last week at the Tribeca Film Festival.

In addition to Harris County courtrooms, there's another Houston legal institution pictured in the film — trial lawyer Mark Lanier is not only a character in the narrative, but he plays himself in three scenes.

"They first came to me to get information about this case," said Lanier. "I've met 80 million people thinking of doing a movie on something who want to come and talk about a case."

He didn't think much about it until the directors came back and asked if they could use his name for a character in the film.

"I had them send over the scenes to make sure the character wasn't carrousing or doesn't say or do anything untoward, otherwise I didn't have a problem with it. I'm thinking the movie will never happen anyways. Next they called my assistant and asked 'Would Mark consider playing himself in the movie?,' and I said I would."

Lanier's previous theater experience is limited to directing a play in college, but according to him, "as a trial lawyer, you act every day."

Puncture stars Chris Evans (Johnny Storm in The Fantastic Four and soon to be Captain America) as a drug-addled lawyer who who takes on a health supply company in hopes of saving lives by forcing the manufacture of safer needles. Though it's based primarily on a Houston case, Lanier says the plot is actually an amalgam of several similar cases with "a lot of Hollywood" thrown in.

"What I tried to do in the performance was pretend that this was really happening in life and there just happened to be cameras around, so it would look as natural as possble," says Lanier. "I've held plenty of press conferences on the court steps, so I tried to look at it look at it as holding a press conference; I've gone to many settlement meetings and walked away from settlement offers, so in my brain I was just doing my normal job."

In addition to Lanier's scenes at the courthouse, his house also makes it onscreen as the home of the opposing lawyer.

"My wife and I were joking that in one scene you can see a cup towel on the stove. Well, the lawyer that lives in house in the movie is not the most honest, upright, caring, ethical guy. He does whatever it takes to get it done and cares more about winning than the truth. And this towel, you can't make out the writing, but it has a passage from Joshua: 'As for me and my house we will serve the Lord.' We got tickled pink, we kept imagining the pop-up video."

Lanier says making it to the premiere of the film at the Tribeca Film Festival was "really cool," and that like true celebrities, Lanier and his wife walked the red carpet while taking pictures of the wall of photographers taking pictures of them.

Puncture has picked up an international distributor, and is hoping positive feedback from Tribeca will attract a domestic distributor. But regardless Lanier says there will be at least one showing in Houston.

"No matter what, I'm getting a DVD and I'll have a screening in my house," he says.