Rating: 
Summary: The Law stripped bare.
Review: "A Civil Action" is based on a true legal case; two corporations poisoned the water supply of a town in Massachusetts with carcinogens, for years, 'til they were finally taken to court in 1981, by the families of eight child leukemia victims, who sued them.I have to say up front that I have not, as yet, read the book, so I have no idea how faithful the screen adaptation is to the characters or events portrayed. Nor do I have any legal training, so I cannot argue procedural points and inaccuracies etc, so I will be reviewing the film for what it is, a film I enjoyed enormously in the cinema when it was first released, then bought on DVD. For me, "A Civil Action" is about the sins, and ultimate redemption, of an amoral, sleaze-bag, ambulance chasing, personal injury lawyer named Jan Schlichtmann, played to perfection by John Travolta. His sins are many, but chief amongst them are, greed - DUH, he's a LAWYER! - avarice, and the one that brings about his ultimate downfall, pride. We are introduced to the way Mr Schlichtmann operates in a blackly funny prologue. This shows said sleaze-bag lawyer pushing one of his wheelchair bound clients into court, arranging his pillows, getting him a drink, wiping away the resultant drips and drools. All the while jury members desperately try to choke back their tears, and the defending lawyers in the medical malpractice case equally desperately try to settle before the trial proper begins by writing increasingly large numbers on a pad for Schlichtmann to approve. While this is all going on Mr Schlichtmann gives a wonderfully deadpan voiceover, explaining how much you can expect to receive for various types of injury; loss of limb, blindness, death etc. Next we see our hero striding purposefully down the street, passing a traffic accident, handing his card to both parties, and moving on without hardly breaking step! But the film is not a one-man-show. It has an excellent core cast comprising Tony Shalhoub and William H Macey as Schlichtmann's partners, Kathleen Quinlan and a pre "Sopranos" James Gandolfini as grieving parents. Dan Hedaya as the owner of the plant at the center of the story, John Lithgow as the trial judge, and last, but definitely NOT least, Robert Duval, the main defending lawyer, and Schlichtmann's nemesis, Jerome Facher. After the opening prologue, we see that Schlichtmann's practice has inherited the "poisoning" case, but can do nothing with it because they can't find anyone to sue! Schlichtmann decides that he will personally visit the defendants and tell them that - sorry! - there's nothing to be done. While there he discovers that there is indeed someone to sue, the land and plant are owned by two of America's major corporations... these people, and his practice, are sitting on, as he describes it, "a gold mine!" The case continues, overwhelming evidence is gathered, Schlichtmann and his team talk about hundreds of millions of $'s in compensation for the aggrieved families of Woburn, Massachusetts... with a healthy percentage going to the practice itself of course! Unfortunately Schlichtmann's fatal weakness is his pride; the defendants are willing to settle out of court, but Schlichtmann is determined to take the case to trial and get the families, not only their money, but also an apology from all those concerned. There is a beautiful scene where Facher and Schlichtmann are out in a corridor awaiting a jury's decision. Facher asks Schlichtmann what he hopes will happen, Schlichtmann replies that he hopes the jury will see the "truth," after sitting through the endless procedural BS'ing and maneuvering that has made up the case. Facher is aghast, and tells Schlichtmann that he should know that, "...a courtroom isn't a place to look for the truth." This certainly supports my own rather cynical view that there is "Justice," and there is the "Law." Unfortunately, they are rarely one and the same. The blurb on the jacket claims that "A Civil Action" is, "The best legal thriller ever." I personally believe this quote does the film a major disservice; by calling it a "thriller" it gives the audience the idea that this is going to be something formulaic and Hollywood, with the requisite "Hollywood" ending, it's not. It's based on true events and shows the legal system here in the USA stripped bare, it shows the impartial brutality of the adversarial system, and how one mans flaws can be amplified by that system, 'til they consume not only him, but all those around him. I think this is an excellent film, as are the performances of all concerned. But be warned, this is NOT a "feel good" movie, unlike "Erin Brockovich," with which it shares many surface similarities, and it is this that probably explains why it pretty much bombed here in the US, but was a big hit in the UK. There is a bitter-sweet ending, given to us in a coda which shows the ultimate price Mr Schlichtmann paid for his involvement in the case, and what he is doing now. And yes, for those of us out there who ever doubted it, "A Civil Action," the film credited with re-launching ol' swivel hips' career, proves, once and for all, that John Travolta CAN act!
Rating:
Summary: Underrated
Review: 'A Civil Action' is one of the most underrated movies of the past 5 years. Pay very close attention to the very first scene of the movie and the very last scene of the movie. THE POINT will come to you. :)
Rating:
Summary: Underrated
Review: 'A Civil Action' is one of the most underrated movies of the past 5 years. Pay very close attention to the very first scene of the movie and the very last scene of the movie. THE POINT will come to you. :)
Rating:
Summary: A Great film about law
Review: A Civil Action is a great look at the judicial system and how one man defied the odds to get justice for the common man. Even though this film was a box office flop it should've been nominated for Best Picture instead of the ... so called comedy Life Is Beautiful
Rating: 
Summary: Poor video transfer to DVD format
Review: A Civil Action is a great movie, but the video transfer to DVD was less than satisfactory. The picture was noticeably unclear and uncrisp at times, especially during scenes where the camera was moving. Until all DVDs can deliver superior quality on a consistent basis, VHS will remain the preferred format.
Rating: 
Summary: A good movie, with great performances and interesting story
Review: A Civil action is a solid movie with some good performances and a story that does not cave into Hollywood's propensity for clichés. I was not expecting a whole lot from this movie, so I was pleasantly surprised. It offers an intriguing story based on real events surrounding the contamination of the water supply in the small, industrial Boston suburb. However, it seems to be at least as much if not more so about the legal process than about the suit itself. Travolta, who plays the prosecuting attorney, Jan Schlichtmann, before the trial was a successful was a not very respected personal injury lawyer (A.K.A. ambulance chaser). During the progression of the story, he narrates advice to the audience as if a he is a law professor. It is this instruction that he himself does not follow and thus leads to trouble for himself and his clients. The movie, in this way, is almost as much about the seemingly illogical logic behind litigation then it is about the individual case it portrays. Travolta does an excellent job as the attorney who feels he constantly has something to prove to the corporate monstrosities of Beatrice and Grace and their Harvard-educated attorneys (Schlichtmann, it turns out, graduated from lowly Northwestern). Robert Duvall plays Jerome Facher, Beatrice's lawyer, as an old wise man who has seen everything and is impossible to ruffle. All he wants is to be left alone to eat his lunch in peace and he is content. William H. Macy plays Schlichtmann's firm's increasingly depressed accountant who is forced to leverage the partner's mortgages and take pile charges onto 20 credit cards in the seemingly hopeless effort to wait out the juggernauts their firm is up against. The DVD is itself very mediocre. It has a 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtrack, but because this isn't an action film, but more of a human/courtroom drama, there's really not a whole lot here to take advantage of 5.1 channels. The only "special feature" of this DVD is the so-called "Production Featurette" which must be all of 5 minutes long and amounts to more of a glorified trailer than anything else - basically it's just a rehash of scenes from the movie with a couple of really quick takes from Travolta and Macy about the movie. I hope that Touchstone will improve a bit on these featurettes in the future to where they actually contain some significant content.
Rating:
Summary: A good movie, with great performances and interesting story
Review: A Civil action is a solid movie with some good performances and a story that does not cave into Hollywood's propensity for clichés. I was not expecting a whole lot from this movie, so I was pleasantly surprised. It offers an intriguing story based on real events surrounding the contamination of the water supply in the small, industrial Boston suburb. However, it seems to be at least as much if not more so about the legal process than about the suit itself. Travolta, who plays the prosecuting attorney, Jan Schlichtmann, before the trial was a successful was a not very respected personal injury lawyer (A.K.A. ambulance chaser). During the progression of the story, he narrates advice to the audience as if a he is a law professor. It is this instruction that he himself does not follow and thus leads to trouble for himself and his clients. The movie, in this way, is almost as much about the seemingly illogical logic behind litigation then it is about the individual case it portrays. Travolta does an excellent job as the attorney who feels he constantly has something to prove to the corporate monstrosities of Beatrice and Grace and their Harvard-educated attorneys (Schlichtmann, it turns out, graduated from lowly Northwestern). Robert Duvall plays Jerome Facher, Beatrice's lawyer, as an old wise man who has seen everything and is impossible to ruffle. All he wants is to be left alone to eat his lunch in peace and he is content. William H. Macy plays Schlichtmann's firm's increasingly depressed accountant who is forced to leverage the partner's mortgages and take pile charges onto 20 credit cards in the seemingly hopeless effort to wait out the juggernauts their firm is up against. The DVD is itself very mediocre. It has a 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtrack, but because this isn't an action film, but more of a human/courtroom drama, there's really not a whole lot here to take advantage of 5.1 channels. The only "special feature" of this DVD is the so-called "Production Featurette" which must be all of 5 minutes long and amounts to more of a glorified trailer than anything else - basically it's just a rehash of scenes from the movie with a couple of really quick takes from Travolta and Macy about the movie. I hope that Touchstone will improve a bit on these featurettes in the future to where they actually contain some significant content.
Rating:
Summary: Travolta is a good actor
Review: A Civil Action: Water. It's a basic fact we need it to survive. The human body can go longer without food than it can water. But what do you do when the water you need to survive may be killing your children? A small town in the North Eastern part of the United States faced this very problem in the 1970s. John Travolta plays Lawyer Jan Schlictmann in this movie based off a true story. Jan is the hottest young lawyer in Boston. He is a personal claims lawyer (some would call him an ambulance chaser of the highest degree) with a thriving small practice. He is one of the 10 most eligible bachelors in Boston. Jan will do anything to win a case. He has his own personal equation as to which person will bring in the most money from a trial and thus fill his pockets the deepest. The client he desperately wants to avoid is a dead child as they are worth the least in a jury verdict. Everything is going well for Jan and then a case with at least 10 dead children drops into his lap. This case is known as an "orphan" as it has landed in every prominent lawyer's office and all have passed on it prior to him. Jan meets with the families to give them a personal "No thank you." While there he finds of their suspicions as to chemicals that have been dumped into the ground and poisoned the water supply. What interests Jan the most is the parent companies behind the dumping. Suddenly a no interest case becomes one which could net him millions. The rest of the movie deals with Jan's obsessive involvement with this case. How it raises him to an almost unheard of prominence and dumps him into the lowest levels he has ever been. John Travolta does a good job in this role. He can play the ultimate of arrogance and also the most wounded of individuals as he grows to learn more about what life is truly about. William H. Macy is Jan's financial affairs person who is desperately trying to keep the firm afloat as Jan's obsession causes them to spend more and more. John Lithgow is fine as the Judge. Robert Duvall is great as the opposing lawyer who gives Jan a lesson in legal theatrics. The movie is well done but a little slow at times. Definitely would recommend it as the performances by all move this one.
Rating:
Summary: Travolta is a good actor
Review: A Civil Action: Water. It's a basic fact we need it to survive. The human body can go longer without food than it can water. But what do you do when the water you need to survive may be killing your children? A small town in the North Eastern part of the United States faced this very problem in the 1970s. John Travolta plays Lawyer Jan Schlictmann in this movie based off a true story. Jan is the hottest young lawyer in Boston. He is a personal claims lawyer (some would call him an ambulance chaser of the highest degree) with a thriving small practice. He is one of the 10 most eligible bachelors in Boston. Jan will do anything to win a case. He has his own personal equation as to which person will bring in the most money from a trial and thus fill his pockets the deepest. The client he desperately wants to avoid is a dead child as they are worth the least in a jury verdict. Everything is going well for Jan and then a case with at least 10 dead children drops into his lap. This case is known as an "orphan" as it has landed in every prominent lawyer's office and all have passed on it prior to him. Jan meets with the families to give them a personal "No thank you." While there he finds of their suspicions as to chemicals that have been dumped into the ground and poisoned the water supply. What interests Jan the most is the parent companies behind the dumping. Suddenly a no interest case becomes one which could net him millions. The rest of the movie deals with Jan's obsessive involvement with this case. How it raises him to an almost unheard of prominence and dumps him into the lowest levels he has ever been. John Travolta does a good job in this role. He can play the ultimate of arrogance and also the most wounded of individuals as he grows to learn more about what life is truly about. William H. Macy is Jan's financial affairs person who is desperately trying to keep the firm afloat as Jan's obsession causes them to spend more and more. John Lithgow is fine as the Judge. Robert Duvall is great as the opposing lawyer who gives Jan a lesson in legal theatrics. The movie is well done but a little slow at times. Definitely would recommend it as the performances by all move this one.
Rating:
Summary: A Very Good Drama Film , But!?
Review: A really great story supposely based on true story gripping in it's tale of greedy & lies behind a secret that could destroy a town & company along with it . john travolta does an excellent job as the lawyer seeking the truth behind the lies but it may cost him all he has . The beef i have with this film though is that it should have got an R - rating for the lauagage in it shame on the rating people for letting it slide by . it has the f word three times it . i personally think that it could have done without it , but hey that's just me, besides that it's a great flick . if they ever do an edited of this film just take the lauguage out leave content in thank you. if you still would like to see this picture parents may want to screen it first there nothing that would offend you, But the profanity. the whole cast does great job. Highly Recommended still, I still think it should've got an R- Rating.
| 
