The Rainmaker (1997)

Very best movie i ever watch

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Blistering performances.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

One of those David and Goliath Courtroom Dramas where it is never in doubt Who Wears the Black Hats or the White Hats. But it's Ultimately a Dual Universe, so Everything Starts There and the Nuances Follow, or not.It Resonates, this kind of Story. Just ask John Grisham. So Mega-Director Coppola takes it on and gives it a Bare Bones, No-Frills account using a Talented Cast and relies on the Power of the Story and a Slice of Lower Class Displays.There are some Quirky Characters to be sure. Mickey Rourke as a Greedy and Slimy Lawyer who gives Matt Damon (The Moral Center) His first job working strictly on commission. Danny Devito may be the Quirkiest as a Paralegal (flunked the Bar six times) but provides the Humor in the Rather Depressing Reality of the Commonplace of the Corrupt. He uncouthly motormouths through the Film with a Complex Moral Code and lots of ChutzpahJon Voight is the Villain who is Eclipsed in Evil Doings by a Cameo from the CEO of the Insurance Company and is nothing more than the Now Idle Rich, with a complete lack of Empathy, that sowed His Evil Ways and found it Pays. Other Well Known Actors show up in some Well Drawn Roles.The Movie received mixed results from Critics and Audiences. It was a Tad Familiar at the Time and seemed to be just another High Hollywood and Average Take on a Familiar Grisham Bestseller. But it is a Bit Deeper than that with its Subtle Display of Low-Income Folks who got caught in the Grindhouse of Corporate Greed and Loathsome Individuals.

Most good courtroom dramas and legal movies deal with murder. Those are just simply the most fun ones to see. The ones that do not deal with murder have to be extra great for everybody to like it. This is one that is simply that good without the need of murder. This is based on the 1995 novel by John Grisham of the same name. I'll have to admit, I did not like the novel. It was too boring with too many subplots and just dragged on about nothing. What Grisham bored me with, Coppola condenses in a way that I wish Grisham wrote in the first place. This features a star-studded cast (Matt Damon, Claire Daines, Danny DeVito, Jon Voigt, Danny Glover, Teresa Wright, Mickey Rourke, Roy Scheider) that is bound to make this movie that much more enjoyable. The movie is about recent law-school grad, Rudy Baylor (Damon) who is assigned to a case involving a poor family suing a wealthy insurance company for not paying for their son's cancer treatments. The company hires a high-power law firm with years of experience with very little losses. Rudy has never even been involved in a case before. At first, the lawyers make him look bad. Then Rudy slowly turns the tables on them as he shows what the company has really been up to. That is what makes the courtroom portion so interesting. A youth fresh of of school successfully files a lawsuit in such an exciting and believable way. But it is not realistic how he is assigned a high-profile case right off the bat. In reality, Rudy would have to work for years near the bottom of a firm and slowly get to the position he is at in the film. This is not as good as most of Coppola's other movies and not 1997's best. The acting and everything might be good, but a big chunk of the movie is so gloomy and dull. But it is better than the book. Luckily, it is one of those that gets better as the minutes go. Bit by bit, the case gets more complex and Rudy tries to save the life of a woman (Daines) who's in a stormy relationship with her husband, all which make the movie a very fine watch.

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.