A Civil Action (1998)

Based on a true story, John Travolta portrays an ambulance chasing lawyer whose company takes 40% of any settlement they get for their clients following accidents in the workplace, or during surgery, or on the road etc. It's when he becomes aware of a clutch of leukaemia sufferers that he begins to suspect that a local tannery might be polluting the water supply with toxic chemicals. Now he is used to quick in and out judicial procedures, high profit low costs. This case is the reverse. He knows that to bring a civil suit against a large-scale entity is rife with risk and costs, but he convinces his colleagues to take it on. The opponents have hired the services of the experienced "Facher" (Robert Duvall) who knows exactly how to play the system. He is an expert at dragging things out and protracting the entire legal process until his antagonists run out of money, or maybe even the will to live. With the costs mounting and the court case showing no sign of concluding, he and his team face bankruptcy. Can they get a settlement in time? It's all a rather plodding drama with little by way of excitement to stimulate the attention. Sure, the atrocity is ghastly but the dramatisation of the scenario surrounding it is rather exemplified by a rather weak contribution from Stephen Fry as the geology guru and an over-cooked contribution from William H. Macy as his increasingly frustrated partner. Duvall does the cynical and exploitative lawyer pretty well, but he doesn't really feature enough to enliven this and at almost two hours long, it's really just a showcase for Travolta and not much of one at that. Essentially it's a watchable enough television movie that shines quite a powerful light on the injustice of the American justice system, but that's about it.