"Erin Brockovich"
reviewed by Eric Grossman
Copyright Eric Grossman 2000
Despite being based on true events (key word there is based), "Erin Brockovich" isn't about a story, it's a star vehicle. Ostensibly, the film is about people having their water polluted by an evil corporation. A well-endowed, twice-divorced mom named Erin Brockovich (Julia Roberts), comes to their rescue by digging up the dirt on this corporation and then she gives her eunuch of a boss, a lawyer named Ed Masry (Albert Finney), the cajones to go after them. As David Spade might say, I liked this movie more when it was called, "A Civil Action," or "Silkwood" for that matter.
The film, which was directed by Steven Soderbergh, the man who helped put independent film on the radar, is so irritating that I wanted to throw something at the screen. Unfortunately, the three people behind me who were jabbering throughout the entire showing were too heavy. Just as an aside, I 've must say that going to the movies has become oh so pleasant nowadays. People put their feet on your armrest, kick your chair, talk through the movie, answer their cell-phones and all of this comes complete for the low, low price of nine bucks.
Julia Roberts is considered America's sweetheart, but I guess here is where I admit to being out of touch. In movie after movie, she treats other characters terribly. In "My Best Friends Wedding," she is awful as she connives and plots against Dermot Mulroney and Cameron Diaz. She is reprehensible in how she treats Hugh Grant's character in "Notting Hill," teeing off on him for no good reason and the worst part is, he takes it. Wasn't the whole point of that film the idea that he was different and unlike everyone else, not tolerant of spoiled-brat, movie star behavior. In "Runaway Bride," she keeps dumping men at the altar when she gets the jitters. Gee, let's make a charming little film about a guy who bails on his brides to be and see how charming audiences find that. And now she plays an obnoxious woman with horrible taste in attire that attempts to cash-out on a frivolous lawsuit. When she loses, she demands her lawyer give her a job because he "owes" her and then she continues to talk back to him whenever it suits her. In addition, she goes off on her fellow office assistants, in particular, making fun of an overweight woman whose only crime was criticizing Erin for not properly doing her job. And when Ed, her boss, tells her that perhaps she ought to wear something other than the micro-miniskirts and revealing tops with her gazungas hanging out, her reply is, "as long as I have one ass instead of two, I'll wear what I like;" Wow, what a role model.
Instead of feeling bad for the people who were poisoned, I just began to get more and more disgusted by Roberts' character since in this film, the victims, like everyone else, are really just incidental to her. Unlike any other good legal drama, there is no compelling conflict created in regards to the tragedy. Soderbergh and his writer Susan Grant are more interested in making Roberts look good by having everyone else look like a schmuck. Finney comes across as a dolt as do all the other lawyers in the film. The office co-workers are all portrayed as fat and stupid. The love interest, George (Aaron Eckhart) seems like a decent guy but like Hugh Grant in "Notting Hill," he takes so much trash from her that we can't care about him either. Even the poor folks who have been injured are portrayed as pathetic which is upsetting because theirs is a sad story that should have been told properly. I feel terrible for what happened to them and I think that Universal, Roberts, and the rest of the above-the-line talent should donate their entire earnings from this film to make up for exploiting their plight.
The biggest disappointment is that Soderbergh, after doing two good movies ("Out of Sight," "The Limey"), has so completely gone south here. Maybe he did it just so he could get a pet-project made or something lofty like that. However, I think the reality is that all independent filmmakers, with a few exceptions such as John Sayles, just want to sell out and make movies about Julia Roberts' breasts. That's fine, breasts are great, but let's cut the pretense and the "I'm an artist" routine.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews