Matho
The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.
LeonLouisRicci
Courtroom Dramas Have Been a Regular Part of the Hollywood System Ever Since Movies Learned to Talk. The Value of Entertainment is as Varied as the Number is Large.Speaking of Numbers, In This One, Numbers Play an Integral Part. There is Much Verbiage and Exposition of the "Value" Placed on Numbers. That Being the Charts that Insurance Companies and Lawyers Rely on to Put a "Value" of Any Said Coverage or Litigation. That is to be Expected Because it is Something that the Average Joe has Probably Heard of but Need Details to "Flesh" Out.For Example, the "Value" in Dollar Terms is Given to What is and What is Not Considered Valuable for Insurance Companies to "Risk" Any Given Client or Customer. Blacks are Considered Less Valuable Than Whites and Children are Considered Less Valuable Than Adults (in dollars of course).John Travolta is Well Cast as a Cocky "Ambulance Chaser" that Acquires an "Epiphany" by Osmosis as He Takes On and is Than Consumed by the Tragedy and Lack of Compassion by Big Corp. as its Lawless Practices are Revealed to Be What They Are. Greed, Unsympathetic to All But the Bottom Line, Irresponsible and Intolerable to All But Those Receiving Compensation for Their Work.Robert Duvall Got an Oscar for His Charming, but Ultimately Villainous Role as the Major Litigator for the Defense of an Almost Billion Dollar Corporation. He Knows His Lawyer Stuff and Accepts His Place in the Evil Doings by Escaping to Boston Red Sox Worship and Having an Hour a Day (Lunch Hour) to Purge Guilt and Play "Regular Guy".The Film is Straightforward with No Claptrap Exploited with Claptrap and is Respectful of the Grief and Suffering. It Has a Polished Look with a Gaggle of Polished Actors. The True Story is a Tearjerker and a No Brainer About How Big Money Purchases the Souls of Otherwise Decent Folks (to feed their families) and is a Much Told Scenario that Generally Goes Unheard by the Masses. Thank God for the EPA (taking on noble causes and doing what little folks are powerless to do against such giants in most cases), but Like Most Government Agencies a Bit Slow on the Uptake.
SnoopyStyle
Jan Schlichtmann (John Travolta) is a tenacious unsentimental personal injury lawyer. Anne Anderson (Kathleen Quinlan) embarrasses him to take her case seriously on the radio. There has been 12 deaths over 15 years from leukemia and 8 of them are children in the small town of Woburn. It's an environmental case of bad water and nobody thinks it can be a profitable case. Jan is forced to go to Woburn to drop the case himself. There is a tannery on the river and Jan notices that it's owned by the massive Beatrice Foods. He and his firm Kevin Conway (Tony Shalhoub), James Gordon (William H. Macy), and Bill Crowley (Zeljko Ivanek) file the complaint against the deep pocketed conglomerate. Jerome Facher (Robert Duvall) is the esteemed defense lawyer for the bigger company. Skinner (John Lithgow) is the presiding judge. Al Love (James Gandolfini) may have witnessed some dumping at the plant. Pinder (Stephen Fry) investigates the environment for Jan. The case rests on a knife's edge as money problems mount for Jan and his partners.This is a courtroom drama with some pretty good acting. Travolta does a good job as a smart greedy lawyer. The character is not somebody that is naturally likable although he is the rooting interest. The movie has many great actors doing good supporting roles. The legal drama has the problem that neither side is really concerned about the truth. It's a mystery without a Sherlock. This is mostly a movie of he says, he says. The legal proceedings doesn't have quite that drive. It's a fine court case with 'realistic' cynical lawyers. I'm not necessarily asking for the movie to Hollywood it up. However the movie could start with a young Jan standing up to bullies in defense of somebody weaker. It would show that he had it in him all along, and it would be compelling to see the case reawaken that part of his psyche. I just think the movie sold his cynicism a little too hard. I rather have his cynicism as a hard outer shell for his soft inner real self.
dunmore_ego
In movies, the good guys always seem to win court cases. Over an ingratiating orchestra swell, no less. But in reality, good or bad has nothing to do with the outcome of court cases. It's how you play the game. If you can afford to be in the game in the first place.A CIVIL ACTION is based on a real life Massachusetts court case, novelized by Jonathan Harr, about a group of families suing two factories in their Woburn locale, accusing them of polluting the town water supply and causing the leukemia deaths of their children. The factories were owned by corporations, and though a settlement was reached, even as the pittance was being paid out, it broke the back of the lawyer who represented the families and destroyed the spirits of the already-shattered families.John Travolta is lawyer Jan Schlichtmann, who informs us during the opening credits that a lawyer would be doing his clients a disservice were he to get emotionally involved with their case. Then for dramatic arc, and in real life it would seem, Jan went against his own principles and tongue-kissed the case to bed every night and woke with its morning breath in his nostrils every day.Robert Duvall is veteran lawyer Jerome Facher, his doddering, distracted persona disguising a clinical tactician who outplays Jan at every step of the game precisely because he is not emotionally involved. And has no desire to unearth any ethics or truth in the case. When Jan tells him that the families he represents want the truth about the contaminated water, Facher replies amusedly, "Are we talking about a court of law? A court isn't the place to find the truth... This case stopped being about dead children the minute it entered the justice system, the minute you filed the case." William H. Macy is Jan's accountant, who helplessly watches the firm go broke against his desperate mortgaging of all their homes as collateral and selling all their office furniture; Tony Shalhoub and Zeljko Ivanek are Jan's snowed under assistants.John Lithgow is the forceful, biased judge, who plays golf with Facher. From the outset, Jan is battling the judge's tripwire impatience as the new guy intruding into this Old Boys' Club.Kathleen Quinlan heads the group of families suing for the truth (one of her sons is dead), and James Gandolfini (THE SOPRANOS would appear literally on the heels of this movie and change his career forever) is a factory worker who harbors damning secrets about the dumping of waste chemicals. In his words - presaging the credo of what would become his most enduring character - "I ain't a rat!" Jan tell us: "Odds of a plaintiff's lawyer winning in civil court are two to one against. Your odds of surviving a game of Russian Roulette are better than winning a case at trial. So why does anyone do it? They don't. They settle. …only fools with something to prove end up ensnared in it. And when I say 'prove' I don't mean about the case, I mean about themselves." In most movies, an eleventh hour revelation drives the Good Guys towards home plate, victory, and that annoying orchestra swell, but in A CIVIL ACTION, even as Jan uncovers damning evidence that would enable him to appeal the case, with an elusive eleventh hour witness, there is no money left for "justice" to be served. And "the law" - ironically - stands in the way: the long standing principle of res judicata, "that a matter once decided in a court of law remains decided - even if that decision flew in the face of reality." Co-written and directed by Steven Zaillian, co-produced by Robert Redford (always into "sensible" films with something to say), A CIVIL ACTION is a success as a movie precisely because it is such a major downer. It conveys an infuriating claustrophobia, that maddening feeling that we can't, in fact, fight City Hall, no matter what Greg Brady says.Schlichtmann becomes a shell of a man, obsessed with trying to do the right thing, sitting in his bare office with no desk, phones and electricity cut off and no future prospects. And it's raining outside.A late scene shows young punks throwing firecrackers across a river on the contaminated land; one of the firecrackers lands in the river and the whole river catches alight.Movie ends with the Environmental Protection Agency getting involved - one giant institution against another; a clash of the Titans, if you will. In Greek mythology, only a Titan could destroy another Titan; and in the modern obfuscating world of blind justice - does anyone see the irony in that phrase? - it is still impossible for an individual to destroy a Titan, even with the best intentions and the Truth on their side.Harr's book ends on a somber, pessimistic note, but the movie was made after the book, with more current information. Closing text informs us that the two offending corps, Grace and Beatrice Foods, were indicted by the EPA and paid 69 million dollars in cleanup costs. Jan is now representing 60 families in New Jersey in another contaminated water case.Is this guy a sucker for punishment or what?
Raul Faust
The first thing that I don't like in this movie is that it tries to pass a moral lesson. I don't enjoy that thing on movies, it seems like the filmmakers are saying he's better than the audience and knows more. Second reason, the film runs too slowly. When a movie is interesting, he captures your attention and things happen quickly, which is not the case here. Other than that, the film tries to reach it's climax, but unfortunately, fails. It's like nothing much really happens throughout the whole "mistery".The good thing in this movie is the acting. Many actors I've never heard about act better than many current Hollywood. Also, the subject is interesting and so would be the movie if better directed and written.
