THE RAINMAKER
Based on the John Grisham novel of the same name, it is the story of how one insurance company does not honor legitimate claims by its policy holders. With the exception of John Voight who is Drummond, the insurance company's thousand-dollar-per-hour attorney, the rest of the cast is either wasted or engages in some very mediocre acting.
The film's hero, Rudy Baylor (Matt Damon) is supposed to be a young hotshot lawyer trying to make it big. As portrayed by Damon, however, he falls very short in that role. He never comes across as being real, as being a real attorney who knows what he is doing. He does not compare with John Voight as a brainy attorney. The film's title refers to someone who aspires to be a great attorney and make tons of money for any company that is smart enough to hire him; no such company has done that in Baylor's present.
Danny DeVito, as a "para lawyer" who has not passed the bar, hams it up something fierce to the point where he comes across as ridiculous. In more or less cameo roles, the following are wasted: Mary Kay Place, Claire Danes, Mickey Rourke, Danny Glover, Virginia Madsen, Roy Scheider, Teresa Wright, Dean Stockwell and others. I shudder when I think of all the fine films those actors have been in; this was certainly not one of them.
The screenplay and direction are by Francis Ford Coppala, and that is hard to believe, too
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Copyright 1997 Ben Hoffman
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