Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested) Binding: VHS Tape EAN: 9780788814181 Format: Closed-captioned, Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC ISBN: 0788814184 Label: Walt Disney Video Manufacturer: Walt Disney Video Number Of Items: 1 Publisher: Walt Disney Video Release Date: February 01, 2000 Running Time: 115 minutes Studio: Walt Disney Video Theatrical Release Date: January 08, 1999 Sales Rank: 12330
Description: Jan Schlichtmann is a cynical, high-priced personal injury attorney who only takes big-money cases he can safely settle out of court. Though his latest case at first appears straightforward, Schlichtmann soon becomes entangled in an epic legal battle ... one where he's willing to put his career, reputation, and all that he owns on the line for the rights of his clients! Also featuring Robert Duvall, William H. Macy, and John Lithgow -- this gripping, widely acclaimed hit delivers edge-of-your-seat entertainment!
Amazon.com: Jonathan Harr's nonfiction bestseller was a shot in the arm for those seeking more than last-minute heroics akin to a John Grisham thriller. Here was a labyrinthine case involving industrial pollution by two highly regarded corporations, contaminated drinking water, and the deaths of innocent children in New England, circa 1981. The case has hundreds of twists and takes our hero--a steady, respectable lawyer named Jan Schlichtmann--and turns his life into personal disaster. Instead of celebrating the law, the story is a maddening and rewarding look at the elusiveness of the courtroom case.
Steven Zaillian, who won an Oscar for adapting Schindler's List and directed Searching for Bobby Fischer, boils Harr's 502-page book into a complete, satisfactory film experience. Book readers will no doubt jeer the streamlining Zaillian had to perform to make the movie flow. Most changes can be quickly defused with the exception of the film's portrait of Schlichtmann. The lawyer has been turned into a movie star, an ultra-slick, cold-hearted gentleman who finds his purpose in working the case. Casting a stalwart John Travolta again diverges from the book, which right from the opening pages showed us a Schlichtmann with feet of clay. As Schlichtmann's partners (including William H. Macy and Tony Shalhoub) descend into the case, the unbridled sense of power and money is abandoned. This case is ultimately about survival.
Zaillian provides an excellent narrative for the sordid facts of personal injury suits, in which money is the only reward for lost or broken lives (deftly introduced in the film's opening scene). Zaillian also stays away from dwelling on the illness of the children involved, focusing on the gaunt faces of the parents who survive (Kathleen Quinlan, James Gandolfini) in controlled anguish. His evil characters--an industrial plant's owner (Dan Hedaya) and a corporate lawyer (another fine acting spin by director Sydney Pollack)--are so human it's terrifying. Zaillian's final ace in the hole is Oscar-nominee Robert Duvall. Perfectly cast as Travolta's opposition, Jerome Facher, Duvall steals scenes with the abbreviated dialogue; he turns a fancy settlement meeting into a farce with one line. Facher is not a callous, love-to-hate-him lawyer like James Mason in The Verdict. Facher represents the law at its brilliant foundation: to best represent one's client. With a taped-together briefcase and dry humor, Facher, not Schlichtmann, is the character who captures us by the film's end. --Doug Thomas
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Solid Flick with very pertinent material despite its age.
As a former resident of the Greater Boston area this was a film that evoked memories on a number of levels. The investigations of cancer clusters and their relationship to EPA Super Fund Sites is still ... Read More
Rating: - A tort lawyer finds new meaning in life and goes down the path of righteous litigation; An underdog against the large corp
(1) A Civil Action is a 1998 film, starring John Travolta (as plaintiff's attorney Jan Schlichtmann) and Robert Duvall, based on the book of the same name by Jonathan Harr. Both the book and the film are ... Read More
Rating: - A page turner
A heart wrenching page turner! You will root for this guy all along. You will bite your nails, become invested and get your heart broken.
Don't bother renting the movie.
Rating: - Far from great, but some great performances help keep the audience satisfied...
I'll be completely honest here. I saw `A Civil Action' because I am in love with James Gandolfini. Sadly his character has very little screen time although he is quite convincing with what he has to work ... Read More
Rating: - Delayed justice, delayed clean-up
A team of attorneys takes on a case that leaves them bankrupt and their firm destroyed, and years later, the EPA is the one that wins the case and forces two polluting companies to clean up their collective ... Read More
- A page turner
- Far from great, but some great performances help keep the audience satisfied...