A CIVIL ACTION
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: A successful but unscrupulous
personal injury lawyer takes on an environmental
case and soon finds that he and his law firm may be
in over their heads. Stephen Zaillian writes the
screenplay as well as directs an excellent
supporting cast in a true and realistic story of a
civil action case. The film may even sacrifice
dramatic impact for accuracy. This may well not be
the story the viewer is expecting, but it will be
an education in how the law works. Rating: 7 (0 to
10), +2 (-4 to +4)
New York Critics: 10 positive, 0 negative, 7 mixed
Stephen Zaillian has written some of the most intelligent screenplays to be made into films in the last several years. He wrote SCHINDLER'S LIST and SEARCHING FOR BOBBY FISCHER. The latter he also directed. His second directing project A CIVIL ACTION. He is again directing his own script, a very nuts-and-bolts look at a civil action against two major corporations as seen through the eyes of the lawyer who brought the action and risked his law firm and his career on the case. The film is based on the book A CIVIL ACTION by Jonathan Harr.
The film's first moments are among its most chilling as the voice of Jan Schlichtmann (played by John Travolta) gives us "the calculus of personal injury," a litany of cold rules for figuring the settlement a personal action suit. A victim who is alive and suffering pays off better than one who is dead. A male victim will pay better than a woman will and a child will pay least of all. As he explains the rules we see how he plays for a jury's sympathy in order to squeeze more money from a defendant.
Schlichtmann's law firm is considering a case from Woburn, Massachusetts, where eight children have died of leukemia. It sounds like just the sort of idealistic case everyone would assume lawyers should take, but several law firms have already turned down the case. Schlichtmann is also inclined to refuse the case until he discovers that there are two major corporations involved. (Apparently no names have been changed, by the way. Certainly all the major characters have the same names as the principal in the original court case. The viewer will probably recognize the names of the corporations.) Schlichtmann attacks the case in the only way that he knows how, launching a multi- million dollar investigation in the hopes that a sufficiently large settlement will pay off the investigation costs. This is not the story the viewer expects. A lot of it is about the financial gamble of environmental litigation. The huge commissions charged by the legal trade are seen not so much as greed but as the pay off of a very big investment. In its own way this is one of the most positive films ever made about the legal profession.
As with SCHINDLER'S LIST we never actually see when Schlichtmann's motivation changes from being purely financial to idealism, but eventually his outrage is obvious. However, his crusade will bring him in direct conflict with eccentric legal genius Jerome Facher (not unexpectedly well-acted by Robert Duvall). In the film Facher plays law the way Bobby Fischer plays chess, repeatedly trying to get under his opponent's skin.
John Travolta is sufficient for this role, but never manages to do anything beyond the obvious. He just wears a suit well and looks reasonably sophisticated. But Robert Duvall really is a brilliant actor, and here he has to take an eccentric and make him seem formidable. That he does quite nicely. William H. Macy's role as accountant for Schlichtmann's law firm seems a little overplayed, but there is nice support by Tony Shalhoub and especially James Gandolfini who plays with real sincerity. It would be nice to see Dan Hedaya in a sympathetic role for once, but this is not it. He seems condemned to always play characters seething with inner rage. But Duvall steals the show.
Conrad Hall's camerawork is a little showy. He intentionally under-lights any courtroom scene. Half of an actor's face will be lit as if carved out of the darkness. The score by Danny Elfman shows more control than he usually has, but the end-credit song by Talking Heads seems jarringly out of place. In all this may well be the most sympathetic and at the same time frightening film about the legal profession since THE PAPER CHASE. I give it a 7 on the 0 to 10 scale and a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
For one good description of the actual case see http://www2.shore.net/~dkennedy/woburn_trial.html. This site is authored by Dan Kennedy, who was a reporter at the Woburn trial. Included at the site is the questionnaire that plays a part in the movie. For more information you can also see http://www.geology.ohio- state.edu/courtroom/. And for greater detail see the book on which the film was based.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
Copyright 1999 Mark R. Leeper
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