The Rainmaker (1997)

Brilliant and touching

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

This gentle David and Goliath style story is a delight to watch and an inspiration to viewers to work hard, be determined and maintain self belief against the odds. Matt Damon underplays his role very well. Clare Danes is less believable as a battered wife - I'd be terrified in her shoes, but she maintains a fixed slight irritation when the baseball bat starts swinging. Virginia Madsen steals the movie, making her character shine with integrity and empathy. She appears for about ten minutes, so make the most of her. Micky Rourke? Was he bored, too much trouble or couldn't learn his lines? Seems to be under-used for some reason. I could actually smell Jon Voight's cologne, so well did he play the rich top lawyer in the expensive suit.

The Rainmaker (1997): Dir: Frances Ford Coppola / Cast: Matt Damon, Danny De Vito, Jon Voight, Claire Danes, Mickey Rourke: Flat and tiresome, which is unfortunate since it starts out just fine. Title doesn't make much sense but it stars Matt Damon as a young attorney who holds a corrupt insurance conglomerate responsible for the untreated leukemia of a dying boy. He receives legal assistance from Danny De Vito while Jon Voight plays the opposing lawyer. Interesting theme regarding dishonesty and truth among lawyers however, it is too predictable and structured like a courtroom drama. Director Frances Ford Coppola does his best but this hardly matches his work in The Godfather, The Conversation and Apocalypse Now. Damon is superb as this new attorney setting out to make a difference. De Vito steals scenes as he stoops to whatever level to achieve victory. Voight is standard issue as the opposing lawyer. Claire Danes is unnecessary as an abused housewife whose presence is basically to involve Damon in a romantic fling. It slows down an already boring film. Mickey Rourke also makes an appearance as a corrupt lawyer, as if that is beneath anybody here. Coppola is a terrific director doing work here that is far beneath him, with stars that are above it. It regards honest law but the screenplay evaporates like an ice cube in the mid day sun. Score: 4 / 10

The Rainmaker (1997)Stolid and solid, steady to the point of functional, and extremely mainstream. That is, here we have a somewhat sensational do-gooder kind of plot, taken from the Grisham novel, and a series of complications and good guys and bad guys fill it out. It's painfully predictable, and yet you are cheering for the underdog lawyers fighting the mean insurance industry and want to see how it ends. Even though it ends the way it has to.I love director Francis Ford Coppola's best movies. A lot. And I also wonder what goes on in his worst ones, where a personal indulgence gets in the way. Here I feel another thing kick in—mediocrity. Or fulfilling a contract. The filming is good of course, the mechanics of editing and acting are top notch. The music is a bit forced, however, and the pace is slower than necessary for the limited range of events that are shown. Matt Damon, years before his Jason Bourne stereotyping, is a recent law school grad who is instilled (according to a plain voice-over) with left-wing idealism. He falls into a shoe-string law firm with an oversized case. Classic David and Goliath. And of course he has setbacks and shows his naiveté, but perseveres, more or less, to the end (though the end itself you need to see for itself). Damon is very good. Jon Voight as the evil opposing attorney is even better, though with a more 2-dimensional role. What really pulls this movie into the mainstream in a kind of disappointing way is the way it is all told. It is what it is—well done but nothing more. It seems that the goal is to be convincing and entertaining. And so it is. Routinely. A simple comparison is "Anatomy of a Murder" which I guarantee Coppola saw before shooting this. The scenario is roughly similar—underdog lawyer against overpaid big shots, with a sidekick who does all the last minute investigative work. But Preminger (in this earlier film) had a whole bunch of things going for him that Coppola somehow skipped. First is an amazing rather than a decent leading actor (Jimmy Stewart). Second is a great score. Third is a plot that threw some real twists at you, including a defendant you didn't know whether to trust or not. Fourth you set it someplace really interesting, filled with quirks. And so on.So this movie, as solid (and stolid) as it is, just comes up short again and again. Enjoyable? Yes. As such!

It seemed in the 90's that Hollywood was on a mission to film every book from the prolific pen of best-selling writer John Grisham. I've never read one of his books but having watched a few of the movie adaptations of his novels, I almost feel I could write one. All you need is an idealistic central lawyer, confront them with a big moral dilemma, close with a big courtroom scene and simmer but never quite bring to the boil.Matt Damon is the youthful unsullied hero here who belies his poor-boy background to try become a solicitor but who has to compromise his moral standards in starting up with a crooked ambulance-chasing litigation practice barely one step ahead of the law. There he's paired chalk and cheese-style with seen-it-all para-legal Danny De Vito and gets involved in not one but two cases which stretch his honesty and integrity to the max, one involving a law-suit against a mega-rich private medical insurance company denying a dying leukaemia victim his due pay-out and the other a cuddly old rich granny trying to stop her grasping kinfolk from getting her money when she expires. Along the way he also somehow manages to get romantically involved with a young battered wife.To be truthful, there's not much to get excited about here, the drama fails to grip as a thriller and the supposed feel-good sentimental climax underwhelms too.Damon and DeVito are okay in their stereotyped parts and Jon Voight gets to roll his eyes and chew the scenery as Mr Big Bad Corporate Lawyer. The only surprising thing about the whole movie in fact is the dull TV-movie type direction it gets from none other than Francis Ford Coppola. Either he was under strict instructions to film the book as written or he really has lost it since his 70's hey-day. This is not his finest hour by any manner of means.