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The Rainmaker
***
Cinema
Releases - April 3,
1998
Rated on a 4-star
scale; USA; Directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Written by Francis Ford Coppola,
narration by Michael Herr; from a novel by John Grisham. Starring Matt Damon,
Danny DeVito, Claire Danes, Jon Voight, Mary Kay Place, Teresa Wright, Mickey
Rourke, Danny Glover, Virginia Madsen, Red West, Johnny Whitworth, Dean
Stockwell.
Arnold Schwarzenegger made a great quip at the
Oscars, suggesting that "Titanic" may have "profits that no accountant can
hide". I laughed out loud. Then he ruined it, with the futile explanation
"And may I remind you, that's very bad news for the studios". I
groaned.
"The Rainmaker" feels like that.
It tries too hard. The main character is Rudy Baylor (Matt Damon), a young
lawyer awaiting the bar exam. He's hired by Bruiser Stone (an almost
unrecognisable Mickey Rourke), a dodgy sort of lawyer who sets Rudy up with
an office, a fair way of generating fees, and sets his friend Deck Shifflet
(Danny DeVito) about showing him the ropes. Rudy has an amusingly unsettled
look throughout -- after all, his boss is a lawyer called "Bruiser" and his
advice is coming from a guy who's failed the bar exam six times, probably
because he seems to have studied at the Royal College of Ambulance-Chasing.
(When Rudy asks Deck if he believes in legal ethics, he answers "I guess
there's nothing wrong with the basics.")
The plot involves whether Rudy can handle being
a real lawyer, whether he can stop his landlady giving her money to a television
preacher, whether he can convince a young victim of domestic abuse (Claire
Danes) to divorce her psychotic husband, and, most prominently, his lawsuit
against a health insurance company whose refusal to cough up for a bone-marrow
transplant led to the death of Donny Ray Black (Johnny
Whitworth).
Do all these subplots work? Sort of. Do they all
work together? Definitely not, and this is where the film goes
wrong.
The good parts include the snippets with Bruiser,
a thoroughly likeable rogue; the relationship between Rudy and Deck, and
they way they haphazardly achieve thoroughness; Donny Ray's case, which is
Rudy's first trial. The courtroom drama that "The Rainmaker" turns into for
this section is very absorbing. The movie engages our sympathies for Donny
Ray and his family, a nice bunch of folks who worked hard and placed their
trust in the system. The dishonest methods of the insurance company's legal
team are embodied in Leo Drummond (Jon Voight), who lies with every breath
and does not try to hide it. We also get an interesting glimpse of how shoddy
and unprofessional a lot of the trial process can work. Judges tease lawyers
on both sides. People trip over wires. At one point a judge offers to actually
swear young Rudy in, in court. Microphones hardly work -- I was reminded
of when bumbling Chris Darden kept making that stupid tapping noise during
his opening statement at the O.J. Simpson trial.
What doesn't work sticks out like a sore thumb.
It's really embarrassing, and if I had made the movie I would be at the premiere
with my head in my hands, asking the editor, "You kept that in??". All scenes
with Claire Danes's character should have been scrapped, and certainly the
romance with her and Rudy, since it's bloody boring. Maybe it seemed worthwhile
at the script level, but Danes plays her character as so dumb and unlikeable
that it's inconceivable Rudy would be interested in her. Rudy's final conclusions
about being a lawyer, and his evaluation about whether he wants to remain
one seem pathetic. It sounds as if he can't handle the real world, and the
feeling of crushed naivete the words suggest don't make sense after the strong,
mature attitude we've seen the kid take throughout the rest of the film.
The voice-over is full of annoying throat-clearers, and needs to be polished
a lot more. Example: "He wasn't a great guy, my old man...he used to beat
my mother up. He used to beat me up too" would sound better as "My old man
beat my mom and I up. He wasn't a great guy." Cross-references, like that
between his mother's abuse and Danes's, are too obviously stated, when we've
already spotted them ourselves. These parts of the voice-over are just insulting
to the intelligence, and what a shame, since so much of the picture works.
Damon is a wonderful actor to listen to, and when the courageous, novel-style
rhythm works, it ties things together beautifully. But it's as if screenwriters
Francis Ford Coppola and Michael Herr (who also worked together on "Apocalypse
Now") sat down and said, "Hey -- this works so well...if we add more it'll
be even better!". Wrong, and "The Rainmaker"'s flaws, unfortunately, make
the film fall short of greatness.
The film has Oscar-calibre performances. Damon's
new success seems to know no bounds. Mickey Rourke, hopefully, will bring
himself back from straight-to-video hell. And with "The Rainmaker" as well
as "Junior" and "L.A. Confidential", Hollywood may finally notice that Danny
De Vito is perfect for the sort of role he has here. As for Danes, well,
she was terrible, but hopefully she'll recover, since she usually does good
work.
Coppola has been rumoured to have directed this
film just for the money, and whether that is true or not, he's done an excellent
on-set job. It's a pity he didn't put more passion into post-production of
the film, and cut the dross which weighs it down. Less would have been so
much more, and I'd be recommending the film without a caution.
COPYRIGHT© 1998 Ian
Waldron-Mantgani
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