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!
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!